Panel on racial and ethnic discrimination (2010): The perception of potential victims.

March 1, 2011 - Red2Red Consultores
Research - Council for the Promotion of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination of People by Racial or Ethnic Origin. Ministry of Health, Social Affairs and Equal.
ISSN/ISBN: 860-11-040-5
 Strands: Discrimination, Statistics
Key Areas: Employment, Housing & Segregation, Education, Health And Social Protection, Migration & Minority Demographics/Statistics, Discrimination Statistics
Countries: Spain

Documents

    Panel on racial and ethnic discrimination (2010)

 

This Panel reveals that the average punctuation attributed by interviewees to the degree of racism in Spain is 4.87 on a scale ranging from 0 to 10, the highest value corresponding by far to the Roma population (6.59). The Panel also shows that around 43% of the interviewees consider that Spain is a racist country. In addition, 31.8% of the interviewees declared having suffered or witnessed discriminatory behaviour, a percentage which in case of the Roma amounted to 56.1% of those interviewed. 
The Panel also reveals the existence of a very wide gap between this first, aprioristic, perception of ethnic and racial discrimination in Spain and the answers given by the interviewees when they were presented with specific objective discriminatory situations. In this regard, 69.9% of those who had declared not to have suffered or witnessed any discriminatory situations stated having experienced at least one of them, which would lead to a percentage of 47.7% of those interviewed having themselves encountered at least one discriminatory situation. In addition, these results seem to show a rather poor level of awareness of what discrimination consists of, among migrants and ethnic minorities in Spain.  
The Panel includes another table with the opinions of the interviewees on the evolution of racial or ethnic discrimination in Spain in the last two years: 17.1% of the interviewees consider that in Spain problems related to discrimination based on the racial or ethnic condition have considerably increased in recent years; 26.6% consider that there are only a few more problems and 31.1% of them estimate that there has not been a substantial increase in the number of such problems. The survey reveals that ethnic and racial discrimination seems to be particularly acute in the areas of housing and employment. In housing area, the most important practical obstacles for migrants to have full access to housing are: discriminatory housing advertisements; denials by a number of real estate agencies or private house owners to rent flats to migrants or members of ethnic minorities; and additional requirements for migrants to get access to social housing.