Ombudsman for Equality

Year 2004 in brief

Discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy and parenthood still prevalent

In autumn 2004, the Ombudsman for Equality arranged a seminar in Helsinki on discrimination in working life on the grounds of pregnancy and parenthood. The seminar concentrated on legislation and legal praxis concerning discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy and family responsibilities. Also, problems in working life due to parenthood were discussed.

Parenthood and children are seen as problems in the labour market. This is evident in the daily work of the Ombudsman for Equality. Typical cases are the following:

• A person applying for a job is dismissed in recruitment due to pregnancy.
• The contract of a temporarily employed person is not renewed when she gets pregnant. There may already exist an agreement on renewing the contract, but the situation suddenly changes when the pregnancy comes out.
• When a person returns to work from family leave, his or her tasks no longer exist. The tasks have been assigned to the person employed for the duration of the family leave or they have been dispersed to several persons.

The seminar was attended by over a hundred participants from industrial safety districts, labour market organisations and other organisations, ministries as well as administration in towns and municipalities. The seminar was widely reported in the media where reconciliation of work and family and its problems was a recurring issue during 2004.

In the late summer, there was public debate about whether the problem should be solved by the mothers of small children remaining at home. The Ombudsman issued a communication on the matter titled Women in working life do not cause the birth rate to plummet, in which she emphasised that reconciliation of work and family life is one of the most important questions in our society both for women and men and for children.

Gender equality planning

In order to promote gender equality planning, the Ombudsman for Equality visited some municipalities and universities in different parts of Finland. Two enterprises were rewarded in 2004 for praiseworthy gender equality planning. In late 2004, an examination of gender equality planning in the public sector was launched and it will be carried out by Statistics Finland.

Physical exercise and sports

One of the themes in the work of the Ombudsman for Equality in 2004 was physical exercise and sports.

The Ombudsman for Equality was asked among other things whether it is in accordance with the Act on Equality between Women and Men that when deciding timetables for sports halls, men and boys often get better turns than women and girls, who have to settle with turn either in early morning or late evening. The Ombudsman urged municipal sports boards to pay attention to an equal treatment of women and men.

The Ombudsman for Equality received requests to examine equality problems related to horse riding, especially public support for riding as a hobby. Municipalities spend only 40 percent of sports finances on women's sports, although women do sports more than men. The Ombudsman maintained that allocating public support in this way is not in accordance with the objectives of the Equality Act and that the Equality Act prescribes that municipal authorities must, if possible, ensure that gender equality is realised also in sports services.

There was also debate about the media's role with regard to sports. Media coverage on sports was discussed particularly when the success of Finnish women in the ice hockey World Cup gained only a little news coverage compared to that of the men's ice-hockey team. In May, the Ombudsman for Equality issued a communication titled News coverage of women's and men's sports is not equal.

The Ombudsman pointed out that the public has difficult to become interested in women's sports unless women's sports gain more room in the media. The Ombudsman emphasised the importance of paying attention also to the contents of news coverage in order to avoid downplaying of women's sports. Covering women's sports in news and appreciating women's sports in the media would play an important role in increasing gender equality in the Finnish society with regard to physical exercise and sports in the Finnish society.

Ombudsman comments on the revised equality act

In autumn 2004, the Government submitted the Parliament a Bill concerning a total revision of the Equality Act. The Ombudsman for Equality considered it positive that the revision would clarify the provisions on equality planning. The revision would also introduce employer-specific pay surveys and the possibility to order employers to fulfil their duties with regard to gender equality planning under penalty of a fine.

The Ombudsman for Equality criticised the Bill for the proposal to enact the Ombudsman for Equality the task of transmitting pay information. According to the Bill, an employees' representative could, on behalf of an employee suspecting discrimination, get the pay information of another employee only through the Ombudsman for Equality in cases where the other employee has not given the permission to communicate his or her pay information. The Ombudsman for Equality viewed that the provision would not promote the legal protection of the employee who suspects discrimination. In addition, it would create administrative procedures that are unnecessary and difficult to implement.

Visitors and visits

As in the past, the Ombudsman for Equality and other staff at her Office attended several seminars, conferences and other events in order to lecture and educate on gender equality. There was also a lot of international interaction; delegations visited the office of the Ombudsman from Honduras, China and Vietnam. Nordic cooperation continued with the annual meeting of Nordic ombudsmen for equality in Copenhagen. Swedish experts visited the Ombudsman's Office to tell about the experiences gained from the criminalisation of the buying of sex and in the autumn, the 10th Anniversary Seminar of the Nordic Forum was held in Turku.