Table of Contents
“Do you have children?”, “Are you going to have any?”, “Do you want to get married?”. These are just some of the questions that thousands of women have been asked in the interview at least once in their life. Invasive questions, which hide a prejudice. Because for some companies, hiring a woman who wants to start a family is a risk, because she would have to pay for her maternity leave, replace it. Because then maybe it becomes not very productive (although there are studies that show the exact opposite).
So it’s better to invest in someone who doesn’t have these aspirations. Or – why not – directly on a man. Because fathers, as we know, don’t let themselves be distracted like mothers.
These are the forms of more subtle discrimination, which start from afar, from a patriarchal culture that hardly dies, despite the laws, despite the world going on.
Those questions, which unfortunately still exist and still many employers ask, would not be legal and licit, but not all women know it. And those who know it do not always have the courage to respond properly and to report.
In this context fits the proposal launched by the Minister of Labor Andrea Orlando, who during a webinar said he wanted to build ” anonymous platforms that denounce those who violate art. 27 which prohibits employers from asking a woman personal questions ”at the time of hiring.
The reference is to Code for Equal Opportunities, which in art. 27 precisely prohibits “any discrimination with regard to access to work, whether in subordinate, autonomous or in any other form, including selection criteria and hiring conditions, as well as promotion, regardless of the hiring methods and whatever the sector or branch of activity, at all levels of the professional hierarchy, including as regards the creation, supply of equipment or the expansion of a business or the start-up or expansion of any other form of autonomous activity ” .
The minister’s proposal refers in particular to paragraph 2 of the legislation, which states that discrimination is prohibited even if implemented:
- a) through the reference to marital or family or pregnancy status, as well as maternity or paternity, including adoptive ones;
- b) indirectly, through pre-selection mechanisms or by means of the press or any other form of advertising that indicates membership of one or the other sex as a professional requirement.
“Complaints are not a delation”, Orlando clarified to the microphones of Radio24.
“This is an institution that also sees other areas and implies that the complaints are then verified by judicial authorities – he explained – it would not be a question of denunciations, but unfortunately this legislation is not applied because women are afraid in some way of denouncing for retaliation in the workplace “.
“This form – continued the minister – could make it possible to avoid this problem: avoid the possibility of reporting violations, otherwise the very serious risk is that of the non-application of rules on which theeffective employment of women“.
Read also
