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Man gets payout for not shaking woman’s hand

A town in western Sweden has agreed to pay damages to a man who was told he wouldn't be hired if he refused to shake a woman's hand for religious reasons.

Published: 20 May 2013 15:05 CEST
Man gets payout for not shaking woman's hand

The decision by officials in Trollhättan to pay the man 30,000 kronor ($4,500) means the municipality won’t have to face a review of the case by Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen).

The incident stemmed from an office visit by a man who had been offered an internship with the integration division at Trollhättan municipality.

When the man was set to meet a female supervisor at the office, he refused to shake her hand, explaining his religion forbade him from shaking hands with women unless he washed his hands directly afterwards.

The female supervisor then reportedly told the man that he could not intern at the office if he was not comfortable shaking everybody’s hand. She also allegedly added that the office had hand sanitizer that he could use.

While the incident was later reported to the Equality Ombudsman, the national office that investigates suspected cases of discrimination, the case was settled before the ombudsman began its investigation, with Trollhättan municipality choosing to pay damages to the man.

“The intern candidate explained that his religion forbade him from shaking the hand of a woman he did not know,” municipal spokesman Said Niklund told the TTELA newspaper.

“By law, a person who feels they’ve been disadvantaged because of their religion has a right to damages. We made a mistake, we took responsibility for it, and the person was compensated.”

The incident has reportedly had repercussions at the workplace, however, damaging the morale among the staff at Trollhättan’s integration division. An investigation into the workplace environment is under way.

The leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats said on Saturday the party planned to report the municipality to the Ombudsman for Justice (Justitieombudsmannen, JO), stating that “equality is more important than multiculturalism”.

“This case is extremely upsetting… it is absurd and makes a mockery of equality and Swedish values,” party leader Jimmie Åkesson said in a statement.

TT/The Local/at

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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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