Germany sees record number of discrimination claims in 2025
The federal commissioner for anti-discrimination has said the government's reform plans, the first in 20 years, are inadequate and won't provide the resources and funding
The federal commissioner for anti-discrimination has said the government's reform plans, the first in 20 years, are inadequate and won't provide the resources and funding needed to combat discrimination. In 2025, more people than ever before turned to Germany's Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency for advice. Ferda Ataman, the independent federal commissioner for anti-discrimination, believes these people need better legal protections and more support services. It's not just about protecting minorities, Ataman emphasized during the presentation of the agency's 2025 annual report on Tuesday. "Anyone could experience discrimination at some point in their lives," she said. What matters to her is that "all people in Germany" receive adequate protection. According to the report, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency received 13,067 requests for counseling last year — 1,662 more than in 2024, and more than three times as many as in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic. Ataman said this number is only the tip of the iceberg, highlighting the comprehensive findings from the German Socio-Economic Panel presented a few months ago. According to its report, more than 13% of people in Germany reported having experienced discrimination in the past 12 months. Extrapolated, that amounts to about 9 million people — and only a fraction of those affected reported incidents to the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency. The agency was created following the enactment of the General Act on Equal Treatment in 2006, which was designed to prevent and eliminate various forms of discrimination, as stipulated in the German Basic Law, the country's constitution. Racism, or discrimination based on a person's (perceived) ethnic origin, was by far the most common form of discrimination reported to the agency.
With 4,571 reports, racism accounted for 43% of all cases, a figure that has remained fairly consistent over the past three years. The same was true for the second-most common form of discrimination reported: discrimination against those with disabilities or chronic illnesses. In 2025, around 28% of cases involved this form of discrimination, which was a slightly higher percentage than in previous years. Around 22% of cases involved discrimination based on gender or gender identity, which was only slightly lower than in previous years. Racism 'not a specifically German problem' Deborah Choi, a startup founder and CEO based in Berlin, describes what racial discrimination means in concrete terms. Born in Nigeria, she grew up in the US before moving to Germany. "As a Black woman, I regularly face racism and sexism — whether I'm building startups or just walking through Berlin," she said in the report. For her, however, racism is "not a specifically German problem, but a global one." "Many people have to do a lot more just to be given the same opportunities," she said. What it's like to be Black in Germany's health system To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Ataman is an independent commissioner, which means she doesn't answer to the federal government and cannot be dismissed by the chancellor. She was elected by the Bundestag for a five-year term in the summer of 2022. The nomination came from the then-federal government, which consisted of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the environmentalist Greens and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party. Ataman is highly critical of the reform of the 2006 Equal Treatment Act that has been put forward by the current federal government, which is made up of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) and the SPD.
The BriefWire