This Act establishes wide-ranging protections against discrimination and affirms equal rights and opportunities across society. It prohibits direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, and instructions to discriminate on grounds including gender, pregnancy, maternity, adoption, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, race, ethnicity, disability, age, political belief, religion, or faith. The law applies broadly in employment, education, access to services, and public life, while allowing limited exceptions for legitimate aims, such as requirements linked to language, religion in specific roles, or age-related provisions. Public authorities and employers are required to take active measures to promote equality in recruitment, working conditions, promotions, pay, and family–work balance, while service providers and public venues are forbidden from denying equal access based on protected characteristics. To enforce these protections, the law establishes a politically independent Equality Board with authority to handle complaints and award compensation, as well as an Equality Council tasked with promoting awareness, monitoring compliance, and advising government and society on equality issues. The Act mandates gender balance in public committees and boards, requires biannual gender-disaggregated wage statistics, and strengthens employee protections against unfair dismissal related to equality claims, pregnancy, or parental leave. Remedies include compensation for victims and sanctions for employers or service providers that breach the law. This Act broadens the scope of Greenland’s 2013 gender equality law, which focused only on men and women, by extending protections to many more grounds such as sexual orientation, gender identity, race, disability, age, political opinion, and religion. It strengthens enforcement through a new independent Equality Board alongside a reformed Equality Council, applies across all areas of society (not just employment and public bodies), and introduces more robust remedies, proactive duties for authorities and employers, and clearer sanctions, thereby consolidating gender equality and anti-discrimination into one comprehensive legal framework.
Гренландия (Дания) · 2024-06-03