The Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday a bill to regulate the profession of equality officerresponsible for monitoring and following protocols against sexual harassment and gender discrimination in public and private entities. The initiative of the Ministry of Equality specifies the criteria that a professional must meet to obtain the position of equality officer, which is currently not regulated by any law, causing a “disparity of profiles”.
As explained by the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, during the press conference after the Council of Ministers, article 4 of the new law will specify the functions reserved for equality officers (external advice on the development of anti-harassment and sexist violence protocols, anti-discrimination measures, etc.). The law too specifies “specific equality training” that these professionals must have to stop the intrusion that Redondo says is happening in this area. In this sense, his department recalls that in 2024, 273 people applied for a job as equality officer and that 629 people were hired in this capacity, of whom only 53% had university studies.
It is for this reason that the project establishes that people who have a university diploma or a higher diploma in professional training (FP) in the field of knowledge of gender studies, feminist studies and public equality policies or, failing that, an official diploma of a Master in Equality Agent.
The standard establishes a transitional period of 10 years so that those who are currently equality officers and who do not have “work experience or training” can be officially accredited, proving that they have three consecutive years of experience in this type of function (or five years, if this experience was discontinuous). Redondo explained that people who already have specific training in equality, whether it is a diploma or master’s degree in gender studies, feminist studies or equality policies, can also be accredited.
The head of Equality assured that the professional certification of these qualifications is a “historic requirement” and a “long-standing aspiration of both the professional sector of equality agents and feminist movements”. According to what he said, in 2011 work began to regulate this figure by law, in works that “ultimately did not see the light of day.” “We took that work and put all that knowledge into a preliminary draft which we hope will become reality next year“, he stressed.
The law was put out for public consultation a month ago, when Equality defended the urgency of regulating the profession of equality agent, because, as it pointed out at the time, the fact that at present neither their functions nor the powers they must have are specified, results in a “profile disparity” and, consequently, in “the lack of homogeneous training which ensures its quality”.
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