Victims of discrimination and those who know others that are can voice concern on camera in a booth being set up in public places as part of an equal rights project.
Launched yesterday by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality, the project will also provide diversity management training for employers and develop lesson plans on equality for primary and secondary students.
This €187,000 project, funded by the EU and the Government and called Enhancing Equal Rights, targets all factions of society, including enterprises, NGOs, children, trade unions and national and local authorities.
It includes an anti-racism theme day promoting cultural diversity through music and entertainment as well as a have-your-say campaign.
More than a quarter of respondents said they had been attacked or threatened with violence
In this campaign, people can voice concern on camera about discrimination based on sexual orientation, ethnicity, belief and gender identity.
Some of these clips will be broadcast by the media.
Civil Liberties Minister Helena Dalli, who spoke during the launch, noted that most cases of discrimination went unreported and studies showed prevalence of discrimination at the workplace, mainly against people of different ethnic origin and LGBT people.
Ms Dalli last week signed a joint call to the European Commission to adopt a comprehensive policy to fight discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
She was attending a ministerial meeting at The Hague on the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia, where findings of a research report conducted by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency were published.
The research study, billed as the largest and most comprehensive, asked about 93,000 LGBT people across the EU and Croatia whether they had experienced discrimination, violence, verbal abuse or hate speech because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
More than a quarter of respondents said they had been attacked or threatened with violence in the past five years and more than half of those who said they had been attacked did not report the incident to the authorities, believing no action would be taken, Ms Dalli noted.
Half of the respondents said they had felt personally discriminated against in the year before the survey but 90 per cent still did not report the incident.
Referring to the new NCPE project, Ms Dalli said that, although training would bear fruit, the real awareness raising and training had to start from the early years within the family and at school.
She called for a comprehensive education policy approach to address diversity and equality.
Ms Dalli added that, following the election, there has been a change in policy on diversity-related issues.
Earlier this week, she presented in Parliament amendments to the Civil Code that would ensure that people who underwent gender reassignment surgery were recognised according to their acquired gender.
In the meantime, the consultative council on LGBT rights was discussing the Civil Unions Act and would, in the coming months, discuss the Gender Identity Act, she said.