At least a million British workers may have been discriminated against because of their religion, according to a report from pollsters ComRes.
The report, which interviewed 251 HR managers and 984 workers, concluded that “British employers struggle to manage expressions of religion and belief in the workplace”.
One respondent said: “In our office, everyone is very respectful of minorities and would never be disparaging about women or people with disabilities, but when it comes to religion it’s fair game. People can be very insulting, especially when they express it through humour.”
Three per cent of respondents said they had been discriminated against because of their religion. Nine per cent said they had faced ageist prejudice, seven per cent said they had experienced sexism. Just two per cent had experienced discrimination on grounds of sexuality or disability.
But ComRes said the figure for religious discrimination – three per cent, i.e. around a million workers – does not include smaller forms of disadvantage, such as “being overlooked informally or excluded socially”. One respondent said: “I was having training about coping with extremely stressful situations and, in the discussion, didn’t feel able to say that I usually pray at times like that. I thought it might make people feel uncomfortable.”
ComRes’s Faith Research Centre carried out the study. Its director, Katie Harrison, said a good test of a workplace was: “Do people always say what they did at the weekend, or do they leave out the part about pursuing a religious- or belief-related activity?”
Labour MP stands up for pro-life charity after criticism
A Catholic MP has come to the defence of the charity Life, after it was attacked for its pro-life stance.
Rob Flello, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, tweeted: “Thanks @LifeCharity for all the great work you do,” after the charity faced criticism from MPs and commentators.
The controversy began when Life received a grant from The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has agreed to give the proceeds of the “tampon tax” – a levy on sanitary products – to women’s charities. Life was one of the 70 charities to benefit from the latest £12 million of funding.
It received a £250,000 grant to spend a project for homeless pregnant women.
Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, was among the critics. She tweeted: “This fund was supposed to help women, not encourage those organisations who want to control them – completely unacceptable and must be stopped.”
Life offers counselling, housing, life skills training and other forms of support to pregnant women and vulnerable mothers. It also campaigns for a culture of life, opposing abortion and assisted suicide.
Cardinal: Britain is leaving the EU, not Europe
Britain may be leaving the European Union but that does not mean that the country wants to leave Europe, Cardinal Vincent Nichols has said.
According to Vatican Radio, Cardinal Nichols told a symposium for young people in Barcelona that Britain had been divided over Brexit but now it was time to “move on”.
The cardinal was speaking ahead of a visit to Rome this week. On Wednesday he was scheduled to bring a delegation of four imams to meet Pope Francis.
The group was also expected to attend a meeting at the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue – to be addressed by its president, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran – and then visit the British embassy to the Holy See.
The trip had long been planned and was not related to the terror attack in Westminster last week.
Cardinal Nichols told the Italian Ansa news agency that he hoped to make the point “that religious leaders want, and are committed to, building relations”.
In his remarks to young people in Barcelona, he said that although Britain was leaving the EU, “it should be pointed out that England does not want to leave Europe.”
He added: “The issue at stake is the European Union.”
The cardinal insisted that people in Britain still “intend to be good neighbours for European countries”.
He said that, after the triggering of Article 50 last week, people in Britain felt both “enthusiasm” and “anxiety”.
The two major issues which the country now faced, the cardinal said, were “the economic and financial repercussions” and the “delicate issue involving Eire and
Northern Ireland”.
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