Purpose: The Barcelona Discrimination Observatory works, since 2018, to make visible any situations of discrimination in the city, and to contribute to the scale and design of the actions required to address such situations.
Structure: The observatory is a partnership initiative involving:
- the Office for Non-Discrimination of the Barcelona City Council, which monitors, investigates, and reports on cases of discrimination, providing psycho-social care, legal advice, and conciliation and mediation;
- the Human Rights Resource Centre of the Barcelona City Council, which gathers resources on human rights, organises training on discrimination and human rights, advises on human rights from a municipality perspective; and oversees compliance with human rights protocols; and
- the Board of Organisations for the Assistance of Victims of Discrimination which is currently made up of 26 social entities that assist victims of discrimination, which functions to better coordinate the response of public institutions and social entities to discrimination, and as a space for training and the dissemination of the problems that are worked on.
Initiative: the observatory publishes an annual report on discrimination, with a specific topic in particular focus in each edition, such as, most recently, discrimination in housing. It addresses: Who is being discriminated against? Who discriminates? Where does this discrimination take place? On what ground is this discrimination? How has the discrimination been expressed? What rights have been violated? What response has been given to the victims and with what result?
The report covers ten grounds: racism and xenophobia, disability, language, religion, health, age, gender, ideology, aporophobia, and LGBTI phobia, including an intersectional perspective. It addresses discrimination by individuals, private organisations/companies, public authorities, and police forces. It encompasses both direct and indirect discrimination, though the main focus to date has been on direct discrimination which includes: differential treatment, verbal assaults, physical assaults, discriminatory and hate speech, and vandalism.
Process: The report draws from the data held by, and the reflections of, the Office for Non- Discrimination and the member organisations of the Board of Organisations for the Assistance of Victims of Discrimination. It combines quantitative and qualitative data. The report incorporates data from the survey of neighbourhood relations and coexistence of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, published by the Institute for Regional and Metropolitan Studies of Barcelona.
Key reference document: Barcelona Discrimination Observatory Report 2021, Barcelona City Council, 2022.
