AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE

January 26, 2006


(Washington, DC) -- Employment discrimination continues to be one of the most serious obstacles to the return of refugees and internally displaced people to their homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

"It's shameful that 10 years after the Dayton agreement, local and international authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina are in many ways walking in place," said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "The wounds of the past will never heal as long as discrimination prevents returnees from joining the workforce. To move forward, authorities must put an end to employment discrimination, both by strengthening existing labor legislation and guaranteeing compensation to those in need of redress."

In its latest report, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Behind closed gates: ethnic discrimination in employment, Amnesty International highlights the continuing discrimination against workers from ethnic minorities that prevents many from finding employment. According to the report, many of these returnees are being denied work at their previous places of employment, companies that now have an ethnically homogenous workforce. Although all are legally entitled to some form of redress for unfair dismissal, most struggle to receive compensation and other forms of reparation.

"During the war we wanted to keep the factory going, even though it was being shelled," Nebojsa Spajic, a former employee at the Aluminij aluminium factory in Mostar, told Amnesty International. "But then they [management] fired us, because we were Serbs or Muslims. I don't say that I am a dismissed worker; I say I am a Serb worker, and that's why I was asked not to return to work."

The 1992-1995 war between the three major ethnic groups of today's Bosnia and Herzegovina took the lives of tens of thousands of people while driving millions away from their homes. Tens of thousands of workers in these territories were discriminated against and unfairly dismissed during the war because of their ethnicity. Discriminatory dismissals were in many cases the first step in aggressive campaigns of "ethnic cleansing," which included killings, forcible transfers and deportations.

"In the wake of the horrifying 'ethnic cleansing' campaigns of the 1990s, the international community recognizes the importance of allowing minorities to return safely to their homeland," said Maureen Greenwood, AIUSA Advocacy Director for Europe. "Sadly, in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the same people who were forced to flee their countries during the war face a new wave of workforce discrimination after they return home."

The right to be free from discrimination is enshrined in The Dayton Agreement as well as in a number of international human rights standards and treaties to which Bosnia and Herzegovina is party. Labor laws in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska explicitly prohibit employment discrimination; they also contain provisions providing compensation to victims of discriminatory dismissals.

Unfortunately, current provisions remain starkly insufficient. Compensation, when awarded, is manifestly inadequate and generally regarded as "symbolic." Furthermore, these legal protections do not apply to all workers who lost their jobs as a result of discrimination. Equally importantly, mechanisms to consider claims and award compensation to former workers are not in place or are too limited. The vast majority of claims remain pending.

Amnesty International is calling on authorities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to immediately abolish employment discrimination and provide compensation to all of those affected by its ills.

CASES

Aluminij aluminium factory in Mostar (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Before the war Aluminij was one of the largest state-owned companies in Yugoslavia. During and after the war, non-Croat workers were unfairly dismissed on the grounds of their ethnicity. In the divided city of Mostar, Aluminij has pursued a policy of ethnic discrimination, the effects of which continue to be felt and elements of which continue to be practiced. Aluminij went from being a company with a significant number of employees from each of the three major communities to becoming a company with an overwhelmingly Croat workforce.

Ljubija iron ore mines near Prijedor (Republika Srpska)
At the beginning of the war the then state-owned company came under the control of the local Bosnian Serb de facto authorities. The new management of the Ljubija mines systematically discriminated against at least 2,000 non-Serb workers by dismissing them en masse solely because of their ethnicity. Thousands of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in the area, reportedly including former workers at the mines, were taken to the Omarska detention camp, which was situated in the Ljubija mines complex. In Omarska, torture and mass killings were carried out. Unfairly dismissed Ljubija workers have not been reinstated in their jobs nor received other forms of reparation. In 2004 the international corporation LNM Holdings (now part of Mittal Steel) signed a joint-venture agreement to establish a new company, the New Ljubija Mines, 51 percent of which is owned by the foreign investor.

Read the full report. »

Contact: Devon Haynie 202-544-0200 x 302

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