The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights publishes its Fundamental Rights Report 2018

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights releases its Fundamental Rights Report 2018. The report is divided into 11 chapters and dedicates its focus chapter to equal treatment for older people and respect for their fundamental rights.

This choice of focus underlines the need to broaden protection against discrimination on the grounds of age in the EU. More specifically, the report suggests adopting the EU's Equal Treatment Directive that extends anti-discrimination protection beyond employment to access to services, housing and healthcare, among others.

The Human Rights Law Centre did research for the UK component of the report. The main findings showed that the UK has not made any improvement on countering racism since 2017 – for example, individuals who are black are over six time more likely to be stopped and searched by police than other people. Additionally, between 2012 and 2017, nearly one in five of those stopped in immigration checks were British citizens. Lawyers and Members of Parliament have criticized the use of ethnic profiling by the Home Office.

Nonetheless, the College of Policing announced the development of a programme aiming at improving the recruitment of black and minority ethnic officers and staff, which the report identified as one of the countering-racism promising practices.

The report also identified two other promising practices developed in the UK. The first one aims at addressing homophobic and transphobic bullying in almost 1000 schools across the country. Projects will be launched in partnership with civil society organisations and the National Children Bureau.

The second one was developed in Medway and aims at addressing early school leaving and other educational needs amongst the Roma community, by engaging with Roma parents through educational workshops, continuing education, leisure activities and parents' groups.

Finally, the report highlighted the fact that the UK is one of the countries with the lowest number of acceptance of the Council of Europe's conventions, with a total number of acceptance of 14 (the higher number of acceptance is 27).