Right to Protection from Discrimination

The right to protection from discrimination means that a person has the right to equal treatment and equal protection, regardless of personal characteristic, identity, origin, religion, language, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, economic status, political opinion, or belonging to a particular community.

This right does not ask for differences to be erased. On the contrary, it requires that differences must not become a reason for someone to be humiliated, excluded, denied rights, treated as less worthy, or placed in a worse position. Equality does not mean that everyone has the same life. It means that no one should be punished for not fitting into what the majority considers “normal”.

This right matters because discrimination does not take away only one opportunity from a person. It often takes away the feeling that they belong to society at all.

When someone is treated worse because of origin, religion, language, sex, gender, disability, poverty, age, sexual orientation, or any personal characteristic, the problem is not only one individual case. The problem is the message that some people must prove their worth, their right to work, education, healthcare, safety, or respect more than others.

Protection from discrimination matters because without it, all other rights become selective. You have a right, but not always. You have protection, but it depends on who you are. You have a voice, but only if society decides that your voice is not a problem. That is why this right is one of the foundations of equality, dignity, and real freedom.

This right can be seen when someone does not get a job because of their surname, origin, religion, sex, age, disability, or because an employer assumes they “do not fit in”.

It appears when a child at school is humiliated because of the language they speak, the clothes they wear, poverty, nationality, religion, disability, or family situation. It appears when a patient is treated worse in a healthcare institution because they come from a marginalized community, have no money, do not speak “properly”, or do not fit the expected image of a citizen.

Discrimination is also visible when a landlord refuses to rent an apartment to a certain family, when an institution fails to provide access for a person with a disability, when a woman is treated worse at work because of pregnancy, or when Roma, Bosniaks, Albanians, migrants, refugees, LGBT people, or any other group are presented as a problem, a threat, or less worthy.

This right exists so that a person can live, work, study, seek healthcare, move, and speak without constantly having to prove that they deserve the same respect as everyone else.

The legal basis of protection from discrimination can be found in constitutional guarantees of equality, laws prohibiting discrimination, and international human rights documents.

This right includes the prohibition of direct and indirect discrimination, protection from harassment, hate speech, segregation, victimization, and unequal treatment by institutions, employers, schools, healthcare facilities, media, and other actors.

In practice, the legal basis of this right means that no one may be placed in a worse position because of a personal characteristic. The state must not only formally say that everyone is equal, but must provide real mechanisms of protection when equality is violated.

In Serbia, the right to protection from discrimination is protected by the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination, laws in the fields of labor, education, healthcare, public information, social protection, and other regulations that govern equal treatment of citizens.

This right means that institutions, employers, schools, healthcare facilities, media, and other actors must not place a person in a worse position because of their personal characteristic, origin, religion, language, sex, gender, disability, age, economic status, political opinion, or belonging to a particular community.

In practice, this right is especially important when people face denial of services, unequal treatment at work, discrimination in school, hate speech, institutional neglect, or public narratives that present a certain group as a problem. In those moments, protection from discrimination must not remain only a sentence in the law, but must become real protection for the person before the system.

At the international level, protection from discrimination is at the very foundation of the human rights system. It is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and other international standards.

This right means that human rights must not apply selectively. A state cannot guarantee protection to one group while leaving another on the margins because of origin, religion, language, sex, gender, disability, poverty, political opinion, sexual orientation, or another personal characteristic.

In the international framework, the prohibition of discrimination is not just an addition to other rights. It is the condition that allows all other rights to truly be rights, not privileges available only to those whom society already accepts.