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Amnesty International Hungary accused of gender discrimination by staff [1]
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Date: 2023-01
Senior management at Amnesty International pressured an employee to give up breastfeeding and subjected others to systemic verbal and psychological abuse, a number of former staff have told openDemocracy – one of whom has breached a gagging order to speak out.
Five ex-employees of the human rights organisation’s Hungary office, all of whom are women, say they experienced discrimination, gaslighting and manipulation.
The alleged abuse took place while AI produced a 56-page report titled ‘No working around it: Gender-based discrimination in Hungarian workplaces’, which urged authorities and employers to act to end gender- and maternity-based employment discrimination.
In another alleged act of hypocrisy, the ex-employees say one-year contracts became the norm for new AI Hungary staff from late 2018. At the time, AI was actively criticising Hungarian laws that permit short-term contracts for handing employers an easy way to dismiss pregnant women.
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“To the outside world, we are working on women’s equality and Amnesty’s gender work was focused on women and the workplace,” said one of the women, Burtejin Zorigt, who was AI Hungary’s gender programme officer and campaign coordinator in 2020.
“Actually, we don’t renew the contract of a pregnant woman? Then I just can’t be a public face of the gender work at Amnesty.”
Another employee did not receive her contract until six weeks after she joined the organisation, with the first draft stating that she must notify AI if she became pregnant or undertook a reproductive procedure. It also gave AI the right to seek a doctor’s verification on both. This clause was removed from a later version of the contract.
Two of the five women, all of whom have made an official complaint to AI, say they suffer psychological and physical symptoms of trauma as a result of their experiences at the organisation.
Misogynistic exchanges
Over video calls, the five former employees told openDemocracy of the toxic work environment they experienced at AI Hungary – claiming a senior manager had an “aggressive” leadership style that was replicated by other team leaders.
Zsófia Gere, 37, spoke of experiencing gender-based discrimination when she returned to work as AI’s office manager after having a baby in 2019.
She said that during a routine work performance evaluation with a manager, she was asked when she would stop breastfeeding and complained that it was preventing her from attending overnight business trips.
The manager also allegedly told Gere he wanted her to spend more time with her child, suggesting she work part-time for a pro-rata reduced salary.
Shortly afterwards, Gere found a new job and resigned from AI. She said the manager then indicated that he had a lot of friends at her new workplace, which she believes was an attempt to intimidate her.
Gere says she was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement that said she had experienced no discrimination at AI and that it was not her reason for quitting. She signed the NDA – which made her liable to a €2,500 penalty for breach – to speed up her departure.
Speaking to openDemocracy, Gere detailed the effect her experience at AI has had on her. “[My] therapist told me that I was a victim of abuse…” she said. “I had low self-esteem; I was terrified that I would make mistakes.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/amnesty-international-ai-hungary-gender-discrimination-staff-accusation/
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