Grüne on equality and diversity

The Greens want to prevent discrimination in the allocation of housing. Supervisory board members and sales staff at the city-owned housing companies are to attend mandatory training. The trigger is the BREBAU case, in which prospective tenants were tagged by origin or income.

No one should be treated unfairly when looking for a home. The Greens want required training at the city-owned housing companies. They also want to look into applications without names. Researchers should study where people are treated unfairly.

The party wants to examine how anonymized housing applications could become standard at the city-owned companies, at least for the first contact; the findings are to feed into the regular process. The advice service of the state anti-discrimination office for people looking for housing is supported and will be reviewed for whether it is sufficient. A research study is to examine discriminatory structures and practices in the state of Bremen and deliver recommendations, including on housing management. Building on this, a round table called "Wohnen in Vielfalt" (living in diversity) is planned, which will also involve private housing companies.

The Greens reject criminalizing self-determined abortions and want a federal rule outside the criminal code. Mandatory counseling is to become a right to counseling, and the three-day waiting period is to be dropped. Access to abortion care in Bremen and Bremerhaven is to be secured.

The Greens want abortion to no longer be a crime. The federal parliament has to decide that. Counseling should be voluntary. The three-day waiting time should go. Bremen should have enough trained staff for abortions.

Section 218 is to be replaced by a law outside the criminal code. The platform sees the supply of medically safe abortions as being at risk. Medical staff are therefore to receive training in abortion methods so that more qualified professionals are available again. Midwives are also to be allowed to perform and accompany medication abortions. Pregnant people are to get independent information, advice and quick help.

The Greens want a health system that takes greater account of differences in origin, age and gender. In their account, pharmacy and diagnostics have so far treated the body of white men as the standard. Research and training are to be adapted accordingly.

The Greens say medicine often follows the body of white men. That should change. Research should look more at differences between people. Doctors and nurses should learn more about this in training.

Research on gender-specific medicine and nursing is to be strengthened, explicitly beyond a two-gender classification, and applied more consistently in practice. Non-discriminatory care for BIPoC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) is to carry more weight in the training of medical staff and be anchored in research. The Greens also plan an information campaign to raise health literacy in Bremen overall. The platform points to the influence of gender roles, education, language and income.

The Greens want to create dedicated services for queer people who need care. Existing elder care facilities are to be made more aware of their situation. The platform argues that many hide their identity there for fear of rejection.

The Greens want care services for queer people. Queer means, for example, lesbian, gay or trans. Care homes should learn more about these people. Many hide who they are there because they are afraid.

According to the platform, queer people often build support networks outside their family of origin. In old age, these can fail because of institutional barriers. Those who depend on elder care therefore often withdraw. The Greens want to set up new services and raise awareness in existing facilities.

The Greens want more women in Bremen to be in paid work and able to support themselves independently. Among other things, mini-jobs are to be reduced, even small jobs made subject to social insurance, and care work better paid.

Few women in Bremen work for pay. Women there also earn much less than men. The Greens want to change this. There should be fewer mini-jobs. Child care should get better.

The platform cites a pay gap of about 26 percent between women and men in Bremen and high poverty rates among single parents and older women. The labor market is to be opened further to women and non-binary people; the Greens back better collective agreements in typically female occupations, family-friendly working hours and more flexible child care. At the federal level they want marginal employment to be covered by social insurance too. They also call for a federal initiative giving family caregivers more financial and professional support, including children and teenagers who provide care.

The Greens call for a federal equal pay law with binding rules, penalties and a right for associations to sue. They also stand by a 50 percent women's quota on supervisory and management boards of companies in which the state of Bremen holds a stake.

Women and men should get the same pay for work of equal value. The Greens want a new federal law for this. Those who break it should face penalties. In state-owned firms, half of the bosses should be women.

According to the platform, pay and promotion must not depend on gender. An equality law for the private sector is to oblige companies and collective bargaining partners to take active measures. The Greens note that women are scarcely represented in leadership roles and commit to the 50 percent quota for state holdings. They see the agreement on the EU directive on leadership positions as a step in the direction they want.

The Greens want to create a complaints office for students and parents who experience discrimination and give it the power to impose sanctions. The existing anti-discrimination counseling is to be reviewed and expanded if needed, and all educational staff are to receive mandatory training.

Some children are treated badly at school, for example because of where they come from. This is called discrimination. The Greens want to create an office for complaints. Children and parents can turn to it. The office should also be able to impose penalties. All school staff should get training on this.

As examples of discrimination, the program names insults from classmates, unfair grading and poor cooperation with parents. The counseling services at the Regional Education and Support Centers (ReBUZ) are to be evaluated. The complaints office is to be added as a second pillar and make intervention in schools possible. Training is to be regular and mandatory and also make teachers more aware of sexualized violence. In addition, the achievements of women, queer people, people with disabilities and people affected by racism are to feature more in lessons.

The Greens want to modernize school toilets and replace many gender-segregated toilets with single stalls. Sex education is to be taught at all schools to a high standard and in a queer-sensitive way.

The Greens want to renew school toilets. Instead of separate toilets for girls and boys, there should often be single stalls. This should also help trans and non-binary children. Lessons about sexuality should be good everywhere. They should also take queer people into account.

Toilets are to be clean, of an acceptable standard and give all genders a sense of safety. Single stalls are meant to spare trans and non-binary students from spaces they fear and from being outed against their will. For sex education, the program calls for teacher training and quality assurance by the education authority. Topics are to include consent and communication about sex, role models, toxic masculinity, and personal needs and boundaries.

The Greens want transport and city planning to deliberately take the needs of different groups in society into account. According to the platform, short, barrier-free and well-lit routes mainly benefit women who combine a job with care work.

The Greens want to plan the city for all groups. Routes should be short, bright and free of barriers. The Greens say this helps women most. Many women care for children and do the shopping besides their job. Places that feel unsafe should go away.

Street space would be shared out more fairly, together with expanding alternatives to the car and improving conditions for pedestrians. Places where people feel unsafe would be identified and reduced. Expanding public transit is meant to give everyone more freedom, safety and access to public spaces.

The Greens want flags of the queer community to fly in front of the state parliament and at city hall on two days a year. This is meant as a sign of solidarity. In the party's view, visibility in public space matters especially to young queer people and strengthens their self-acceptance.

A special flag should fly at city hall on two days a year. On May 17 it is the rainbow flag. On November 20 it is the trans flag. The Greens want to encourage queer people this way.

On May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, the intersex-inclusive progress version of the rainbow flag is to be raised. On November 20, the day of remembrance for victims of transphobia, the trans flag is to follow. The platform names the Bremische Bürgerschaft (state parliament) and city hall as the locations.

The Greens want the justice system to better reflect the diversity of society. To that end, the headscarf ban for female legal trainees is to be lifted, diversity is to become part of legal training, and a gender advancement plan is to be created.

The Greens want a more diverse justice system. Women training to be lawyers should be allowed to wear a headscarf. Legal training should cover diversity. A plan should support women and non-binary people.

Diversity skills are to count as a core legal competence, and law school and the Referendariat (post-degree legal traineeship) are to include related content. Hiring procedures and further training are meant to increase staff diversity, and part-time traineeships are to become possible. A gender advancement plan is to govern equal consideration of all genders in evaluations, promotions and appointments to committees. The evaluation system is to be made transparent with regard to discriminatory effects.

The Greens want a public service that reflects the diversity of society. Religious and belief-based clothing as well as tattoos would be allowed in all occupational groups; in the platform's view, what matters is the quality of the work.

The Greens want more diversity in the public service. Employees should be allowed to wear religious clothing, even with a uniform. Tattoos should also be allowed if they do not violate the constitution. There should be more training against discrimination.

Training on diversity and anti-discrimination would be attended far more often; a course on the planned state anti-discrimination law would be mandatory for managers. Hiring would be diversity-sensitive, faster and fully digital, and accompanied by monitoring. Video and remote interpreting is planned for the entire public service, for example at the police, the migration office and schools, and the administration would become more multilingual. Employees would be able to join European exchange programs, with their offices compensated for the absence. Barriers to using mental health therapy would be lowered.

The Greens want to set up a central, professionally run complaints office under the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) for Bremen's public service. Confirmed cases of discrimination are to be handled according to a uniform set of measures.

The Greens want a complaints office for Bremen's public agencies. Staff can go there if they are treated unfairly. There will be fixed rules for confirmed cases. The agencies should also do more against prejudice toward Sinti and Roma.

The complaints office is to serve all government departments jointly. A uniform catalog would set out how confirmed discrimination cases are handled. To counter antiziganism, the party wants to take up recommendations from the Independent Commission on Antiziganism and start a critical debate within the administration. In addition, staff who deal with the public are to be offered language courses as training, and children of all mothers should receive birth certificates as quickly as possible.

The Greens want to make sure all employees in the state of Bremen can actually use their rights under the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG). According to the platform, only a few companies have working complaints offices so far. At the federal level, private care work is to be added to the law as a ground of discrimination.

Companies must have a complaints office against unfair treatment. The Greens say many companies do not have a good one. The party wants to help small companies with this. The law should also protect parents and people who care for relatives.

The platform notes that employers are legally required to have a complaints office but that this rarely works in practice. Small and medium-sized businesses are to get support, for example by forming a shared office with other firms or by handing the procedure to an outside body. At the federal level, the party wants to push for responsibility for children or relatives in need of care to be added to the AGG as a separate protected characteristic.

The Greens want to apply gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting more consistently. All decisions and the allocation of money are to take the life situations of all genders into account. The procedure used for the Bremen-Fonds serves as the model.

The Greens want every decision to consider all genders. This also applies to the state's money. People should be able to see who benefits from the money. Schools and career advice should also rely less on fixed gender roles.

Gender budgeting means checking public spending for its effects on the different genders. The party wants to show where budget funds have an effect and which groups benefit most. The procedure used for the Bremen-Fonds is to apply to the budgets of all departments. The party also supports gender-sensitive teaching and wants to expand such counseling at the youth employment agency, because young people often choose careers along gender lines.

The Greens want to carry out the state action plan on the Istanbul Convention together with the advisory board of affected people and review it continuously. Women's shelters and child protection facilities are to get lasting funding, along with new shelter places and safe apartments.

The Greens want to protect women better from violence. Women's shelters should get enough money for the long term. There should be shelter places that are always open. Police, courts and public agencies should learn more about the issue.

The Istanbul Convention is a Council of Europe treaty against violence toward women and domestic violence. The party wants to expand awareness training on domestic and sexualized violence in public agencies, the police and the courts. Support systems for victims are to be better connected, and work with perpetrators is to be expanded. Daycare centers, schools, the youth welfare office, police and pediatricians are to cooperate more closely. Plans include shelter places available around the clock and safe apartments for young inter* and trans* people and homosexuals who face violence in their own surroundings.

The Greens want women, inter*, non-binary, trans* and agender people in the state of Bremen to be able to earn their own living. To that end, low-wage jobs are to be pushed back, labor market programs and daycare expanded, and the equal pay strategy carried out.

FINTA* means women, inter*, non-binary, trans* and agender people. They should be able to live on their own work. So the Greens want fewer badly paid jobs. There should be more flexible daycare. Equal work should get equal pay.

According to the platform, these groups face structural disadvantage in a society shaped by patriarchy and should be able to live self-determined lives. The party names four levers: less employment in the low-wage sector, more gender-specific labor market programs, more flexible daycare, and swift implementation of the existing strategy for equal pay.

The Greens want to continue the state action plan against homophobia, transphobia and interphobia until 2035 and anchor it more firmly in politics and administration. A new state queer commissioner is to coordinate its implementation. Counseling services for queer people are to keep receiving support.

Bremen has a plan against hatred of queer people. The Greens want to continue this plan until 2035. A new commissioner should take care of it for the state. Counseling centers for queer people should get more money if more people come.

The action plan is to be tied more and more closely to the regular workings of politics and administration. The queer commissioner is to be adequately resourced, drive implementation across all departments and represent queer policy issues in public. The party wants to keep funding counseling on gender diversity and adapt it to demand; rising numbers of requests are to be met with more funding. Queer young people are also to be strengthened, and meeting places for young women, lesbians, and inter*, trans* and agender people are to be supported.

The Greens want to rewrite Bremen's state equality act, the Landesgleichstellungsgesetz. In the future it is to cover all gender identities and thereby advance equal treatment of all genders in the public service.

Bremen has a law on equality in the public service. The Greens want to change this law. It should then apply to all genders. This includes people who are neither women nor men.

The state equality act governs gender equality in Bremen's public service. The party announces an amendment that it describes as a major step toward equal treatment of all genders. In the future, every gender identity is to be taken into account in the law.

The Greens want an anti-discrimination law for the state of Bremen that lets affected people sue for damages. In addition, a study called the Bremen Monitor is to collect experiences of discrimination so that policy rests on evidence.

The Greens want a new law against unfair treatment. The law applies to the state of Bremen. People who are treated unfairly can then sue for money. A study should also ask people in Bremen and Bremerhaven about their experiences.

The law is meant to extend the duty of equal treatment beyond employment and services. Residents would be able to sue for damages. Alongside enforceable rights, the party wants to pay more attention to the self-empowerment of those affected. The Bremen Monitor is planned as a research project on experiences of devaluation, political participation, distance from politics and recognition in both cities. Its findings are to identify problems and lead to fitting solutions.

The Greens want to support organized sports in drawing up prevention and anti-discrimination plans. A funding program is to bring more women into leadership roles in clubs and associations. The platform argues that sports are a particularly good place to counter homophobia, racism and the stigmatizing of people with little money.

Nobody should be treated badly in sports. The Greens want to support clubs in this. More women should lead clubs and associations. A funding program should help with that. People with disabilities should also get their own sports offers.

Staffing at the Bremer Sportjugend (Bremen's youth sports organization) was increased to fight sexualized violence, and this is to continue. Funding is to go to programs for people with disabilities, to breaking down gender stereotypes and to addressing structural racism in sports. The platform points to the action plan for the future of sports, whose funding principles oppose all forms of discrimination. Club initiatives on gender equality, against racism and on awareness of sexual violence are to keep receiving support.

The Greens want to give economic policy a feminist orientation and use gender equality as an asset for the business location. Women are to be strengthened as workers and skilled staff, as founders and in leadership positions. The platform bases this on the often precarious situation of women in Bremen's labor market.

Women should have the same chances in business as men. The Greens want to support women as skilled workers and as founders. More women should become bosses. Work and family should fit together better.

The platform calls an inclusive and feminist approach an opportunity for Bremen as a business location. Equal access for women to starting companies and to management levels is to be promoted. As new tools, the party names flexible full-time work and shared leadership. A precondition, it says, is that paid work and care work can be combined in every phase of life.