Discrimination against Women. Within the Council, the Committee for Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination of Women has been established. Next to the institutional bodies in charge of protection and promotion of human rights, there are NGOs that statutory goals are same oriented. The most known is the Czech Helsinki Committee - the non-governmental non-profit organization operating in the Czech Republic since 1993. The mission of the Committee is striving for respect to principles of natural human rights and enforcing these rights in the whole society.115 Its main areas of activities are monitoring of respecting the human rights in the Czech Republic, fighting racism and intolerance, prison system and criminal justice, social and legal counselling and human rights education. 2.5.2
Equal rights
On 17 June 2009 the Czech Republic adopted anti-discrimination legislation116 which guarantees the right to equal treatment and prohibits discrimination in access to employment, business, education, healthcare and social security on the grounds of sex, age, disability, race, ethnic origin, nationality, sexual orientation, religious affiliation and faith or worldview. The passing of the Anti-Discrimination Act by the Czech Chamber of Deputies was a necessary step to avoid legal proceedings by the European Commission117 for failing to implement the obligations contained in the EU Race Equality Directive118 and the Employment Equality Directive119. The Czech Republic went even further and introduced laws120 on gender equality in the employment environment. Accordingly, the discrimination on grounds of gender while asserting the right to employment is strictly prohibited. There is a legal obligation to pay equal salaries, despite of the gender, for the same work or the work of the equal value for the same employer. The Labor Code121 prohibits discrimination, as well as humiliation in the workplace, in particular sexual harassment is targeted. Moreover, equal right to parental leave is guaranteed to both, women and men. Based on the enacted legislation, as well as on the public opinion surveys122, the Czech Republic can be considered as one of the most liberal European countries with regard to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights. The respondents to the surveys claims that they generally perceive a social environment as comparatively favourable for LGBT people. According to the studies, they are generally less likely to be victims of violence, harassment or discrimination, less exposed to negative attitudes, and not forced to avoid certain locations or behaviours for fear of http://www.helcom.cz/cs/en/o-nas/. Anti-discrimination Act, 195/2009 Coll. 117 http://www.ceetrust.org/article/306/ 118 Council Directive 2000/43/EC 119 Council Directive 2000/78/EC 120 Law on the Employment No. 1/1991, Wages law No. 1/1992 121 No. 262/2006 Coll., English translation available on http://www.mpsv.cz/files/clanky/3221/labour_code.pdf 122 For instance In 2012, Fundamental Rights Agency performed a survey on discrimination among 93,000 LGBT people across the European Union. 115 116
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