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DISCRIMINATION

Swedish milkmaid sues jobs agency over ‘pregnancy’ snub

A Swedish milkmaid who was denied employment at a dairy farm in southern Sweden over suspicions she may be trying to get pregnant should be compensated by the country's employment agency, Sweden's eqality watchdog claims.

Published: 6 May 2011 11:29 CEST
Swedish milkmaid sues jobs agency over 'pregnancy' snub

According to Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen – DO), the woman deserves to be awarded damages of 300,000 kronor ($48,252) from the National Employment Agency (Arbetsförmedlingen) after they had advised the farmer not to employ her, causing her to lose out on a full-time job.

The woman had been assigned a traineeship at the milk farm via the Employment Agency in 2009.

While working at the farm, she expressed her desire to continue as a full-time employee. But when she told the farmer she had suffered a miscarriage in May 2009, her employee terminated her traineeship.

In subsequent conversations, which the woman recorded, the farmer said he didn’t want to hire someone who wanted children because of the complications and expense involved in finding a replacement during parental leave.

The woman took her case to DO, which represented her in a hearing before the Swedish Labour Court (Arbetsdomstolen – AD).

In January, the court found the farmer guilty of breaking Sweden’s discrimination laws as well as the country’s parental leave laws and ordered him to pay the woman 30,000 kronor in compensation.

During the proceedings, the employment officer who assigned the woman the traineeship said he would have never offered her the placement had he known she was pregnant.

The officer also admitted under oath that he had actively advised the farmer against employing the woman, saying that the environment was ‘too dangerous’ for a pregnant woman.

As a result of the man’s statement, the woman also reported the National Employment Office to the Equality Ombudsman for discrimination.

According to the Ombudsman the Employent Agency have treated the woman unfairly and they are demanding damages of 300,000 kronor.

The large amount, the Ombudsman is hoping, will be a ‘real deterrent’ to other similar cases.

The Employment Agency was due to answer the Ombudsman by Wednesday May 4th, but they have put in for a respite.

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DISCRIMINATION

‘Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority’: Truth commission releases report

The Swedish state should issue a public apology to the country's Tornedalian minority, urges a truth commission set up to investigate historic wrongdoings.

Published: 15 November 2023 14:14 CET
'Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority': Truth commission releases report

Stockholm’s policy of assimilation in the 19th and 20th centuries “harmed the minority and continues to hinder the defence of its language, culture and traditional livelihoods,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset said in an article published in Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Amends must be made in order to move forward,” it said, adding that “acknowledging the historic wrongdoings” should be a first step.

The commission, which began work in June 2020, was to submit a final report to the government on Wednesday.

Tornedalen is a geographical area in northeastern Sweden and northwestern Finland. The Tornedalian, Kven and Lantalaiset minority groups are often grouped under the name Tornedalians, who number around 50,000 in Sweden.

The commission noted that from the late 1800s, Tornedalian children were prohibited from using their mother tongue, meänkieli, in school and forced to use Swedish, a ban that remained in place until the 1960s.

From the early 1900s, some 5,500 Tornedalian children were sent away to Lutheran Church boarding schools “in a nationalistic spirit”, where their language and traditional dress were prohibited.

Punishments, violence and fagging were frequent at the schools, and the Tornedalian children were stigmatised in the villages, the commission said.

“Their language and culture was made out to be something shameful … (and) their self-esteem and desire to pass on the language to the next generation was negatively affected.”

The minority has historically made a living from farming, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, though their reindeer herding rights have been limited over the years due to complexities with the indigenous Sami people’s herding rights.

“The minority feels that they have been made invisible, that their rights over their traditional livelihoods have been taken away and they now have no power of influence,” the commission wrote.

It recommended that the meänkieli language be promoted in schools and public service broadcasting, and the state “should immediately begin the process of a public apology”.

The Scandinavian country also has a separate Truth Commission probing discriminatory policies toward the Sami people.

That report is due to be published in 2025.

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