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Qatar Airlines slammed for sexist job advert

Qatar Airways has been sharply criticized by Norway's anti-discrimination ombudsman after it specified that all women coming to a recruitment day for cabin crew had to wear short skirts.

Published: 4 February 2014 12:44 CET

Qatar Airlines slammed for sexist job advert

A team of Qatar Airways stewardesses at the launch of the airlines Brussels flight - Photo: Brussels Airport

Men, on the other hand, were asked to wear "business suits".

"We believe that it is contrary to law that there should be different clothing requirements for men and women," Carl Fredrik Riise, an advisor for Norway's anti-discrimination ombudsman, told Norway's DN newspaper. "It discriminates between applicants on the basis of gender."

By 12pm on Tuesday the offending advert had been amended, with both sexes asked to come to the recruitment event in Oslo dressed in "business wear".

An advert on Qatar Airway's website for a similar recruitment day in Romania still made the distinction, however.

"For Ladies: business Suit, knee length skirt (with skin colour stockings or no stockings) and short sleeved blouse. Hair neatly tied back with appropriate make up," the advert reads.

Men, however, are asked to wear, a "business suit with shirt and tie and neatly groomed."

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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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