Press Releases

Back

The EOC Reports on Work Plans and Progress

18/09/2008

Members of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) met today (Thursday, 18 September 2008) at the 74th EOC Meeting and discussed various matters related to the Commission’s business including the following:

Code of Practice on Employment under the Race Discrimination Ordinance
Endorsement of the Final Report of Study on Public Perception of Portrayal of Female Gender in the Hong Kong Media
Six Monthly Review of EOC’s Work (January – June 2008)
Reports of the Legal & Complaints Committee, Community Participation & Publicity Committee, Public Education & Research Committee, Administration & Finance Committee

Members discussed the content of the draft Code of Practice on Employment under the Race Discrimination Ordinance (RDO) and its tentative schedule of the consultation exercise. The EOC embarked on issuing a Code of Practice on Employment under the RDO (the Code) because the majority of complaints received under the other anti-discrimination legislation currently in force were employment related. The Code aims to explain how the RDO protects people from racial discrimination in employment-related matters. The EOC believes that fair employment opportunity available to ethnic minorities is essential to their integration into the wider society.

The EOC is working on a tight schedule to ensure that the Code will be in place at the same time when the new legislation becomes operational. The EOC will issue a draft code and invite comments and representations from the public in October 2008. At the same time, we will meet with stakeholders including racial minority groups, trade unions and employers’ associations, and conduct public forums to collect views and comments from various sectors of the community. It is envisaged that the revised Code will be laid before the Legislative Council for negative vetting in March 2009.

In order to raise awareness and promote understanding of this new legislation, the EOC has already started a series of public education on social integration and racial harmony through radio and TV programmes. The Commission would continue to enhance its public education and publicity programmes for the ethnic minorities which include strengthening the on-line resources for ethnic minorities, translating and printing EOC pamphlets and booklets into different ethnic minority languages, and organizing training for ethnic minorities in collaboration with NGOs.

Members also reviewed the report of the Study on Public Perception of Portrayal of Female Gender in the Hong Kong Media, and discussed the follow-up actions to promote the positive image of female gender in the media. It was planned that a press briefing would be held in October 2008 to release the survey findings.

Brief reports from the Commission’s four Committees were discussed, charting the progress of various aspects of the EOC’s work in the past quarter.

Statistics for complaint handling for the first eight months of 2008

	2007 (Jan to Aug)	2008 (Jan to Aug)	Compared with same period last year
Complaints under DDO	329 (59%)	293 (55%)	-11%
Complaints under SDO	211 (37%)	212 (40%)	+0.5%
Complaints under FSDO	20 (4%)	26 (5%)	+30%
Total:	560	531	-5%

Referring to the above table, a total of 531 complaints were received from January to August 2008, compared with 560 in the same period last year, representing a decrease of 5%.

Under the Sex Discrimination Ordinance (SDO), up until August this year, 212 complaints were received, an increase of 0.5% over the same period in 2007, when 211 were received.

A decrease of 11% was recorded for complaints received under the Disability Discrimination Ordinance (DDO), 293 cases were received in the first eight months of 2008, compared with 329 in the same period of last year.

Complaint cases received under the Family Status Discrimination Ordinance (FSDO) totaled 26 cases so far this year, 20 cases were recorded in the same period last year, representing an increase of 30%.

By respective Ordinance, 55% of the complaints were on the DDO, 40% were on SDO and 5% on FSDO.

Minutes of the 74th EOC meeting will be uploaded to the Commission's website at http://www.eoc.org.hk following Members' confirmation of its content at the next meeting on 18 December 2008.

Media Enquiries : Ms. Mariana LAW (Tel No. : 2106-2226)

Equal Opportunities Commission

18 September 2008