Intersectional Discrimination
Inline with its mandate for the years 2024-2027, CDADI has prepared and adopted the Study Preventing and combating intersectional discrimination in Europe: A model for change.
The Study is dedicated to developing a model for preventing and combating intersectional discrimination in Europe. It analyses the comparative law, policy and practice in the Council of Europe member states and draws from the converging trends a collective way forward. The study lays the ground for the drafting of a Committee of Ministers Recommendation on preventing and combating intersectional discrimination, which is currently carried forward by a dedicated CDADI working group in consultation with the Gender Equality Commission (GEC).
The study recommends adopting the meaning of intersectional discrimination as ‘based on a combination of two or more grounds and representing a qualitatively distinct form of discrimination which reflects both similar and unique patterns of group disadvantage associated with grounds such as sex, gender, “race”1, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, sex characteristics, age, state of health, disability, marital status, migrant or refugee status, or other status.’
In 2022, the European Commission on Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) focussed its annual seminar with Equality Bodies on the topic “Prohibition of discrimination: can a focus on intersectionality contribute to effective equality?” The content and outcomes of this event can be accessed here.
1 Since all human beings belong to the same species, the Committee of Ministers rejects, as does the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), theories based on the existence of different “races”. However, in this document, the term “race” is used in order to ensure that those persons who are generally and erroneously perceived as “belonging to another race” are included in the protection from non-discrimination on the basis of “race”.
Council of Europe documents using the term intersectional discrimination or approach:
- Documents prepared by CDADI and its substructures:
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)16 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on combating hate speech
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2023)9 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the active political participation of national minority youth
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2023)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on equality for roma and traveller women and girls
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2024)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on combating hate crime
- Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on upholding equality and protecting against discrimination and hate during the Covid-19 pandemic and similar crises in the future
- Study on the active political participation of national minority youth in Council of Europe member States
- COVID-19: An analysis of the anti-discrimination, diversity and inclusion dimensions in Council of Europe member States
- Documents of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI):
- General Policy Recommendation No.5 (revised) on preventing and combating anti-Muslim racism and discriminatio
- General Policy Recommendation No. 9 (revised) on preventing and combating Antisemitis
- General Policy Recommendation No. 17 on preventing and combating intolerance and discrimination against LGBTI persons
- Other Council of Europe documents:
- United around our values - Reykjavík declaration (2023)
- Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy for 2024-2029
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)17 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on protecting the rights of migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women and girls
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)7 on young people’s access to rights
- Recommendation CM/Rec(2023)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on Roma youth participation
