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Swedish town sued over pregnancy job snub

A city in western Sweden is facing a discrimination lawsuit for halting a woman's recruitment process after she told them she was pregnant.

Published: 12 March 2013 17:57 CET

Swedish town sued over pregnancy job snub

The woman had applied for a permanent position as an aid administrator with the city of Borås in western Sweden.

When she was called to come in for an interview she informed her potential employer that she was pregnant.

She was subsequently informed that she was no longer under consideration for the position but that she was welcome to apply for another job with the city after she was once again ready to enter the workforce.

The woman brought her case to Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO), which has filed a lawsuit against the city of Borås alleging gender discrimination and an abuse of Sweden’s parental leave laws.

“This kind of discrimination and unfair treatment has serious negative consequences both for individuals and for equality between men and women in society,” ombudsman Agneta Broberg said in a statement.

“Considering these laws has been in place since 2001, it’s remarkable that things like this are still happening to this extent.”

Between 2009 and 2012, the ombudsman received 393 workplace discrimination complaints related to pregnancy. Twenty-two of the cases have resulted in settlements, while three other lawsuits resulted in guilty verdicts.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday with the Labour Court (Arbetsdomstolen) in Stockholm, the ombudsman is seeking 75,000 kronor ($11,800) in damages for the woman.

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'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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