A recent survey shed light on the situation with discrimination in Russia.
Personal experiences of discrimination
Russian Federation is a multinational country with many autonomous republics. One of them (Sakha Republic or Yakutia) is larger than France, Italy, Finland, England, Greece, Sweden, Austria, and Germany combined.
Although there are few people of African descent in Russia, the territory of the country unites people of Asian and Caucasian origin, as well as nations closer to Arabic roots.
Because of the recent protest activity in the USA, questions of racial tensions and discrimination were getting attention in Russia, too.
Institutionalized racism is believed to be a non-existent problem in Russia, due to its specific historical and political circumstances, however, casual discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or other characteristics seems to happen here as well, as the study demonstrated.
The survey by Levada was conducted at the end of May and beginning of June 2020 among respondents aged 14 to 29. The study was conducted as part of a research program FES Youth Studies.
Surprisingly, 45% of participants from Russia had a personal experience of being discriminated against, according to the survey, at least by one characteristic. Among them, 12% faced discrimination often.
The most frequent issues where participants were discriminated against were age (22%) and financial status (21%); among them 4% and 2% respectively had it happening often.
Gender discrimination was experienced by 16% of participants. There were twice as many Russian women among this category than men.
The least typical was prejudice because of sexual orientation (3%). It could be due to the fact that in Russia sexual minorities rarely display it openly due to strong negative societal position.
Ethnic bias was experienced by 11% of participants. Non-Russian participants experienced it twice more often than Russians. Non-Russians also were more frequently discriminated against because of their language or religion.
Prejudice because of political beliefs was experienced by 14% of young Russians that took part in the study. Further 13% of respondents said they were discriminated against because of their social activity.
Share this article
CommentsКомментарии ( 0 )