International Journal of Discrimination and the Law

Domestic violence against women (VAW) is one of the pressing issues in society, but it often remains latent due to underreporting and social norms that place women in a disadvantaged position. Despite the implementation of legal acts and policies to ensure gender equality and the elimination of VAW, these types of offenses are still concealed, resulting in a cycle of abuse and silence. This study utilizes a quantitative research design to examine the issue of domestic VAW in Kazakhstan, based on data from two distinct surveys. The initial survey focused on a sample of the Kazakhstani population, consisting of 395 respondents aged 18 to 65. The second survey involved 29 professionals working at three regional crisis centers and organizations that support victims of domestic VAW. Furthermore, official data from the Committee on Legal Statistics and Special Records of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan regarding VAW during the period of 2018 to 2022 was analyzed. The findings indicate that there is a low probability of reporting domestic VAW to the authorities, highlighting a gap in awareness and trust in available legal and support systems. The study contributes to the field by identifying barriers to reporting domestic VAW and assessing the effectiveness of government interventions.

This study addresses the lack of legal socialization of adult asylum seekers in Germany and their need for legal education programs. It argues that, unlike native-born individuals, adult asylum seekers often lack prior exposure to the legal frameworks of their host countries, having been socialized under distinct legal systems in their countries of origin. As a result, targeted legal education initiatives are crucial for bridging this gap and facilitating their incorporation into the host society’s legal system. This study examines a legal socialization initiative led by two civil society organizations, Diakonisches Werk Waldeck-Frankenberg and the European Academy for Democracy, to address this challenge in Korbach, Germany. Based on 23 qualitative interviews with workshop participants and trainers, the study underscores the urgent need for such programs to enhance asylum seekers’ understanding of their rights and obligations. The findings provide empirical evidence that legal education is a critical yet understudied aspect of asylum seeker integration, offering valuable insights for policymakers and scholars and emphasizing the need to incorporate legal socialization into integration policies.

Despite the increasing participation of women in the Indian workforce, they continue to bear the primary responsibility for caregiving and domestic work. The Indian maternity benefit law aims to promote women’s participation in the workforce while ensuring the well-being of both mother and child. However, a closer examination of this seemingly progressive law reveals its underlying stereotypical assumptions. The law, particularly the key changes brought in 2017, overlooks the gendered division of labour in society and instead reinforces stereotypes about women’s caregiving roles. This article examines India’s maternity benefit law through an anti-stereotyping lens, illustrating how the transformative potential of the law is constrained by the gender stereotypes that inform both its conceptualisation as well as operationalisation. These stereotypes create systemic and institutional disadvantages for women, especially in the absence of corresponding paternity benefits. The article argues that dismantling the stereotypes underlying the maternity benefit law is essential to addressing the deep-rooted inequalities faced by women. It suggests that the recognition of shared parental responsibility for caregiving work, through the enactment of a law providing for paternity benefits, could help challenge these structures of inequality and contribute to addressing discrimination against women.

The law in some ways is beginning to take positive steps for the Deaf community to ensure services generally are accessible following the pandemic and recent change in legislation, with the introduction of the British Sign Language Act 2022. Despite some improvement, there is little case law or scholarship in terms of disabled individuals wishing to access a service where the ‘experience’ is the core service. This article argues that recent changes in legislation and legal decisions will address this laguna by transforming attitudes and practices. It seeks to provide some guidance for service providers offering an experience as a core service to review and implement reasonable adjustments in advance to enable access to the experience for Deaf users using British Sign Language as a mainstream language. Although there is now legal recognition, it is argued that the requirement for the provision of British Sign Language should be incorporated into anti-discrimination legislation as a reasonable adjustment to ensure adjustments are made for Deaf users wishing access to an experience.

Pursuant to Article 1.2 of the CERD, the Convention does not apply to differentiations made between citizens and non-citizens. At the same time, the CERD protects the victims of racial discrimination regardless of whether they are citizens or non-citizens in the territory of the state that engages in such discrimination. Further, non-citizens are entitled to all human rights and basic freedoms except for the small category of political rights. The ICJ’s interpretation of the CERD in Qatar v. UAE has been criticized for having ignored the overlap between the concepts of “nationality” and “national origin” and disregarded the CERD Committee’s General Recommendation 30. However, it may be argued that the ICJ decision and the CERD Committee’s General Recommendation 30 address different issues, and the interpretations from each body are not in conflict. To the contrary, they could complement one another in elucidating the rights of non-citizens under the CERD.

Should discrimination based on age be considered exceptional in light of other grounds for discrimination? This issue has been debated for decades. The article contributes to this enduring discussion by examining the particularities of the way age discrimination is addressed by European jurisdictions. This paper compares the prohibition of age discrimination within European Union (EU) Law and within the law of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), with a particular focus on the case law of the European Court of Justice and of the European Court of Human Rights. Beyond the differences that may exist between the courts, the comparison emphasises two common traits. Firstly, both courts encounter difficulties in qualifying age discrimination, and when they do, they accept more readily justifications for age discrimination than any other prohibited ground. Secondly, there is an uncertainty from both courts about the group protected against age discrimination, if it even exists. The paper therefore concludes that age discrimination is treated in a distinctive manner in both EU law and the law of the ECHR, which is justified by the specific character of age as a ground of discrimination.