Purpose:
The Office for Non-Discrimination is accordingly designed as the municipal service for dealing with, advising on, mediating over and penalising (where legally possible) discriminatory situations and for providing information and training and raising awareness on rights and duties recognised in the city.
In 1998, the city of Barcelona created The Office for Non-Discrimination (OND), with the aim of dealing with discrimination-related human rights violations, and to improve the anti-discrimination work and equality. The OND is a mechanism for guaranteeing human rights at a local level. The service is open to all city residents and addresses all forms of discrimination, with a special emphasis discrimination related to origin, cultural or religious affiliations, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Stimulus/Rationale:
1992 saw the creation of the office of Commissioner for Safeguarding Civil Rights, 1995 the creation of the Office of Councillor for Civil Rights and 1998 the launch of the Office for Non-Discrimination (OND). In 2017, under the Barcelona City of Rights Government Measure Programme, a decision was then taken to give it a new impetus, both in terms of its lines of intervention, which need updating to take account of the City Council’s other services, and also in the context of the city and the realities and situations of discrimination that we are faced with.
This measure aimed at incorporating the best of what has been done so far and to have all that supplemented with new responsibilities and intervention mechanisms. It came in response to a Study on municipal mechanisms for safeguarding human rights which had been commissioned at the request of the Department of Citizen Rights and Diversity Services. It was also partly the result of contributions from discussion and work meetings held with the City Council’s areas and services (Ombudsman’s Office, Department of Feminism and LGBTI, the Municipal Institute of People with Disabilities, the Department for Citizen Assistance and Information, among other departments). Finally, contributions were received from the city’s municipal political party groups and human-rights organisations with which the City Council has been working regularly to promote and safeguard citizen rights.
Under the Barcelona City of Rights Government Measure Programme, where the OND is given its impetus, the action principles it establishes are followed by the intercultural perspective. Recognising diversity and positive interaction with this diversity is applied as a crosscutting principle in the measure’s initiatives.
Process:
The OND concentrates its efforts on the following activities:
- Information, training and awareness-raising in everything related to equal rights.
- Care and advice to victims of human rights violations. Where such a violation constitutes a crime, the OND offers legal advice on processing the appropriate claim against discrimination. As for non-criminal cases, it seeks out-of-court solutions.
- Involvement from the City Council in certain cases that are regarded as strategic and whose resolution may lead to a profound change or transformation in both society and policies.
- Detection of structural problems that causes human rights violations and the proposal of improvements to redress them.
Regarding the fight against discrimination, the city prior to the OND had various organisations which had developed their own services for victims. The OND created an Entities Bureau in order to cooperate with all the actors who want to work these aspects in a coordinated way.
The Entities Bureau aims to scan the situation of discrimination in the city, to share resources and suggestions and to create and implement protocols of action.
The OND Structure
The OND is structured around two key areas of action: prevention and guarantee. The area of prevention groups together all the elements intended to be used to ensure no situations of discrimination occur in the city through information, training and aware-raising approaches. Preventing rights violations and situations of discrimination involves work where public initiatives join forces at various levels from a social and educational perspective and with a long-term intergenerational reach. In such cases, the OND works to promote and raise awareness of rights. And it is through the Resource Centre, which is located within the OND, that a range of training will be offered, aimed at the public, to ensure a connection and coordination with all the city’s human-rights championing organisations.
As for the area of guarantee, the OND acts by attending to, supporting, analysing and offering advice where situations of discrimination arise. Guaranteeing rights is fundamental for citizens and an obligation for everyone. It is here where the OND takes responsibility as a public service in providing help and defending, at various levels, the people who have suffered situations of discrimination so that they feel protected and supported through an individual and/or collective defence. It offers legal advice in all situations where the person or groups affected are deemed to need and/or wish to resolve their discrimination judicially through the appropriate measures. Such actions are brought about through lawyers specialising in human rights. In addition, mediation is also used in the area of guarantee as an alternative tool for resolving disputes between individuals, organisations or companies and the authorities as a solution to legal proceedings.
Key reference documents:
