Racism, xenophobia, and LGBTI-phobia once again most common forms of discrimination in Barcelona

Racism, xenophobia, and LGBTI-phobia were once again the most common forms of discrimination last year in Barcelona. 

The local council's Discrimination Observatory reported on Tuesday that 631 discriminatory incidents were recorded last year, 20% more than in 2021.

Aside from the 185 cases of racism and xenophobia and the 129 cases of LGBTI-phobia, the same report also detected discrimination for reasons including health (120), language (90 cases), aporophobia (82), disability (68 ), gender (51), religion (19), ideology (17) or age (6).

The same entity also noted a three-fold increase in discrimination relating to mental health or HIV compared to the year prior.

More than half of these instances of discrimination took place in private establishments, though in the case of racism, discrimination took place in private and public ones in equal measure. 

Men were slightly more likely than women to file reports. 35.7% were between the ages of 25 and 39, while almost 40% were 40 to 64. 

Almost a third of the Catalan capital's population claimed to have suffered some form of discrimination last year, but only 5.6% reported it. 

"These figures demonstrate that people normalize very serious events," deputy mayor for social rights Maria Eugènia Gay said.

According to her, these figures do not "illustrate" the totality of cases, and while more and more people report discrimination, others chose not to out of fear, stigma, or mistrust of the authorities.