14th April 2025
Last year, residents most frequently identified violations of equal opportunities when receiving services or purchasing goods, with discrimination most commonly experienced on the grounds of disability and gender. These are the findings of the annual report of the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson (The Office).
In 2024, the Office received 261 more complaints than the previous year, with one in two (46%) of them concerning discrimination in the field of consumer protection. This is also the area where the highest number of equal opportunities infringements was found.
Difficulties in obtaining services or purchasing goods were also prevalent in the enquiries received by the Office. In total, 1,532 consultations were made orally or in writing by citizens and organisations last year, one fifth more than in 2023. The most frequent complaints were about possible discrimination on grounds of disability and gender (60 and 59 complaints respectively). A further 37 complaints were based on age and 35 on social status.
Harassment is on the rise
According to Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson Birutė Sabatauskaitė, people have been actively complaining about possible discrimination in the area of services and goods for several years in a row, and last year this trend was particularly pronounced.
“When we look at discrimination in services and goods, we are not just talking about restrictions based on disability or age. Increasingly, complaints are being made about possible sexual and gender-based harassment in healthcare and other service providers. There is a steady increase in the number of complaints about sexist, gender-stereotyping advertisements, with almost half a hundred enquiries last year. Interestingly, the creators and commissioners of such ads are becoming more and more cautious, more responsive to our comments, and usually stop publishing them already during the course of the investigation,” commented B. Sabatauskaitė.
Systemic problem – inaccessible spaces
Last year, the Office investigated the most complaints about possible discrimination on the grounds of disability, the majority of which were in the field of consumer protection. In total, 350 different complaints were received on the grounds of disability, 7 investigations were carried out at the Ombudspersons’s initiative and 15 infringements were found.
“We see persistent systemic problems faced by people with disabilities. One of the most pressing is the inaccessibility of public spaces and infrastructure. We have investigated complaints about inadequate customer service systems in post offices, polyclinics and other institutions for people with visual impairments, difficulties in accessing events, public toilets and other facilities, as well as restaurants and shops with assistance dogs. It is important to note that these problems are not only due to physical inaccessibility, but also due to gaps in the legal framework and lack of public awareness”, says B. Sabatauskaitė.
In addition to investigating the complaints, she said, additional measures had been taken to change the situation. The Commission for Monitoring the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is part of the Office, has made recommendations on how to improve the regulation of assistance dogs; the Office has drawn the attention of public authorities and service providers to the difficulties for persons with disabilities in planning intercity bus journeys and using accessible toilets in public places; and it has recommended that the regulation of accessible services for travelling companions should be regulated, and that access for persons with disabilities to the driving test and to public hearings should be improved.
Older age becomes a barrier to accessing services
The Office was contacted 311 times on the basis of age, and almost all of the infringements identified were in the field of consumer protection. According to Ms Sabatauskaitė, the number of complaints about the inaccessibility of digital services to older people increased last year, for example, the abolition of cash payment for tickets on Vilnius trolleybuses and buses was deemed discriminatory. The Service’s high-profile study on the digital divide among older people also addressed this issue.
“The available data shows that a significant part of society is unable to adapt so quickly to digital progress for objective reasons, and these people need help. Especially as equal opportunities laws oblige us to ensure equal access to services for all citizens, regardless of age or disability. So, first of all, we need to preserve alternative ways of delivering services, and secondly, there is a lack of accessible, personalised support for older people at risk of digital exclusion,” says the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson.
Age discrimination also manifests itself in difficulties in obtaining insurance, accessing or extending credit, she says. “For example, complaints have been made about situations where there is an upper age limit for services or where benefits are only available to younger customers. Complaints have also been made about preventive health screening programmes that are age-specific, as well as about job advertisements that specify the preferred age of employees. Workplace harassment, where older workers are given less favourable working conditions, is still an issue”, says the Ombudsperson.
Aim to protect vulnerable groups
In 2024, the Office was active in education and prevention activities. During the year, the number of people who participated in contact-based equal opportunities training (885) or completed e-learning (3,819) almost doubled. 90 companies and institutions were consulted on equal opportunities issues.
Much attention was paid to researching and improving the situation of transgender people and to analysing and raising the arareness of violence against women with disabilities. The studies showed that the legal framework does not guarantee equal rights for transgender and non-binary people, that there is a lack of data on the situation of violence against persons with disabilities in municipalities, that there is a lack of coordination and a comprehensive approach to addressing domestic violence, and that there is insufficient attention to prevention.
The Office has made dozens of recommendations to policy makers, institutions, bodies and companies, including: to include a gender perspective in the Law on Protection against Domestic Violence, to apply equal conditions for the provision of services to families, regardless of the number of children and family status of the recipients of the services, to oblige service providers to ensure the availability of services in alternative ways, not just digitally, by means of legal regulation, to adopt the Law on Gender Identity Recognition, to collect and compile data on the situation of vulnerable groups, etc.