Poland’s commissioner for human rights has criticised the recently launched national census for discriminating against disabled and LGBT people, as well as members of ethnic minorities.
Among the concerns he has raised are difficulty of access for visually impaired people, the inability of some trans or nonbinary people to choose their gender identity, and the prohibition of using non-Polish characters in names.
These issues “make it difficult for those filling out [the census] online to exercise their rights”, warned human rights commissioner Adam Bodnar in a letter to the head of Statistics Poland (GUS). It also “prevents them from giving accurate, complete and truthful answers”, something that can be a criminal offence.
In the letter, Bodnar notes that he has previously drawn attention to the fact that the census form needs to be accessible to blind and visually impaired people. The director of the census bureau had informed him that it complies with the law on accessibility of websites of public entities.
“Despite these assurances, the census questionnaire remains inaccessible to the blind and visually impaired,” wrote Bodnar yesterday. “Reading software cannot read parts of the form. It is still not possible to complete the form using only a keyboard.”
“When designing the survey, it is necessary to take into account the needs of all respondents, including people with various disabilities,” noted the human rights commissioner.
Bodnar also pointed to problems for transgender people who have not yet finalised the process of legally changing their officially recognised gender (which is a lengthy and difficult procedure in Poland).
When filling in the census form, users must enter their national identification number (PESEL), which includes their officially recognised gender. However, if the user then tries to enter a different gender identity in the relevant section of the census, the system informs them of an error until they choose the one matching their official identity.
“This state of affairs not only violates the dignity of transgender people, but also results in false data being provided,” argued Bodnar. “Gender identity is an integral part of the dignity and humanity of every human being and cannot be grounds for discrimination.”
“A similar problem concerns the answers available regarding the gender of nonbinary people,” Bodnar added. The only choices given are male and female, which “prevents nonbinary people from correctly identifying their gender identity”.
Additionally, people in same-sex relationships who have married abroad (but whose marriages are not legally recognised in Poland, where same-sex marriage is not possible) could have difficulty in knowing how to accurately answer questions about their marital status.
“There is a risk of criminal liability for providing false data” in the census, notes Bodnar. “In the case of people who are transgender, nonbinary or have had a same-sex marriage abroad, serious doubts arise as to whether they have the capacity to fulfil this obligation.”
The human rights commissioner therefore recommended that the census form be adjusted to allow users to enter a gender other than the one encoded in their identitification number and the possibility to choose a gender other than male or female.
He also called for information to be provided on how same-sex couples married abroad should complete the form.
A similar appeal was issued last week by a group of NGOs, including the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH).
Finally, Bodnar noted that ethnic and national minorities in Poland could face difficulties in properly entering their names into the census, due to the lack of recognition of non-Polish letters. When entering such characters, the online system informs them that they are “forbidden”.
Under Poland’s law on the languages of ethnic and national minorities, “one of the[ir] fundamental rights is the right to use the spelling of their names and surnames in accordance with the rules of the[ir] language”, wrote Bodnar. The constitution also guarantees such minorities the right to maintain their own languages.
“By blocking non-Polish [characters], the current [census] form not only makes it difficult for members of minorities to exercise their rights, it also makes it impossible to provide accurate, exhaustive and truthful answers,” warned the human rights commissioner.
Bodnar also raised concern that, whereas the census website contains promotional material in Czech, Kashubian, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian and Belarusian, “there is no material in German, the language of [Poland’s] largest minority“.
Poland’s latest national census – the first since 2011 – was launched by GUS at the start of this month. Residents of the country have until 30 September this year to fill out the form online, providing details on issues such as level of education, economic activity, ethnic and cultural identity, and living conditions.
Bodnar himself has recently been in the news after the Constitutional Tribunal – which is widely seen as being under the influence of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party – last week ruled that he must leave office within three months.
Bodnar has repeatedly clashed with the government on issues such as LGBT rights, coronavirus restrictions, judicial independence, and the takeover of local media outlets by a state-owned oil company. His five-year term expired last year, but a divided parliament has so far been unable to nominate a successor.
Main image credit: Max Bashyrov/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
