“We deserve to feel safe in our country without being afraid to hold hands with our spouse. Today, this is not a reality.”
This is what one of the 140,000 interviewed LGBT+ people across Europe, North Macedonia, Serbia and the UK, added to his survey before handing it to FRA – The European Agency for Human Fundamental Rights – that published an interesting data on the quality of life of the European LGBT+ population.
The research, called “A long way to go for LGBTI equality”, touched different and interesting points related to the quality of life of a person and to their fundamental human rights.
Data shown in this survey are also compared to a similar survey dated 2012. What is very worrying is the percentage of LGBT+ experiencing discrimination in normal life or even when when looking for work.
Now, if it is true that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender has a lower percentage than the one in 2012 for almost all groups, trans people have experienced an increase of discriminations since 2012, and what worries the most is the below figure, showing how no improvements have been made since 2012 all around Europe.
Another striking result is the level of satisfaction with each local government ant the effectiveness of them in fighting prejudices against the LGBT+ community. Overall, across the EU, one third of respondents (33%) believe their national government combats effectively prejudice and intolerance against LGBT+ people definitely or probably. This proportion is lower for trans people (24%). The differences between countries, however, are striking. In nine Member States, the majority of respondents, which is as high as 83% in Malta, say that the government in their country combats definitely or probably effectively prejudice and intolerance. In contrast, in 10 Member States, this proportion is lower than 20%, dropping to a low of 4% in Poland, where anti-LGBT zones have recently been introduced.
What is the best European Country when it comes to LGBT+ rights and their protection?
Apparently is the little island of Malta, that surprises the entire community and wins even over those North European countries that have always been praised for their tolerance and acceptance.
What happens to those people who would like to walk hand in hand publicly?
The research found that 6 in 10 respondents said they avoid holding hands in public for fear of harassment or assault, and as if it was not enough, the survey also shows that at lest 1 each 10 people experienced sexual or physical assault in the last 5 years simply for being LGBT+.
More and very interesting results are shown in the survey “A long way to go for LGBTI equality”, but the Agency did not stop to a simple show of their results, they also came up with very interesting suggestions for all Countries involved in their research.
For example: “Stepping up efforts to tackle harassment and violence against LGBT+ people”
Or again, how to ensure that nobody feels a need to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity.
There would still be so much to analyse and talk about, but I would rather invite you to download the results of this survey here and read them all.
