Study Reveals Widespread Racism in Belgium’s Cleaning Industry

"No veiled woman", "No man to do my cleaning", "No person from immigration"... The list of stereotypes that weigh down the cleaning sector is quite long. Racism and discrimination in this field do not come only from customers. These are also behavioral gaps maintained within the work teams, reports La Dernière Heure.

Faced with the discontent and complaints, the Minister of Equal Opportunities Frédéric Daerden (PS), Unia and the cleaning sector fund have launched a training and awareness-raising project for workers in the sector. "We encounter racism from some clients who consider it problematic to deal with a man rather than a woman or who do not want to have contact with an immigrant or a trans person for example," explains Philippe Marchandise, training coordinator at the Security Guard Social Fund.

He adds that in the cleaning sector, up to 189 nationalities are encountered. "Working with different people is complicated for Mr. Everyman and it is even more true in the field of cleaning, which operates with a low-skilled public or who do not master the French language. So we have decided to fight this problem through training modules".

During the training, some managers called for strong solutions against racism, which seems to resist all the shock therapies proposed so far. "Society is evolving. If we do not provide a structural response to the problem of racism, there will be prejudice for everyone. That is why it is essential to have the most precise framework possible," adds the spokesman for Frédéric Daerden.