Office Hours

Home Page

Employment Issues

Pay Issues

Job Hunting

Contract Advice
Job Seekers

Health Issues

Online Training

Debts
Useful Tel Numbers

Useful Links

FAQs

Retraining

Out of Hours

Holiday Health

Rail Timetable

Sex Discrimination - What is Sex Discrimination?

Direct Sex Discrimination is when someone decides to treat another person in an unsatisfactory way due to their sex. This can be in relation to:

• Recruitment
• Training
• Promotion
• Selection for redundancy

Indirect Discrimination is when an employer makes it difficult for one sex to achieve an enforced requirement, condition or practice. An example could be a requirement to be above a certain height (which fewer women than men could fulfil).

"When could an employer lawfully specify that they require a person of a certain sex?"

If there is 'a genuine occupational reason'. For example it could be for reasons of decency in a single sex establishment such as a boarding school.

"Can claims be made to employment tribunals? "

If you feel that you have been discriminated against, you may take a complaint to an employment tribunal within three months of the act complained of. There are no age or length of service requirements to bring a claim.

You do not have to have left employment before making a tribunal claim and there is no upper limit on the amount of compensation a tribunal can award.

Further Information

The Equal Opportunities Commission can be contacted on
Telephone: 0845 601 5901

www.eoc.org.uk