What is discrimination?

Discrimination is treating an individual or group of people unfairly based on a specific characteristic such as age, gender, race or sexual orientation. Discrimination can be direct or indirect but includes behaviours such as excluding someone from opportunities, or actively treating someone badly, based on their protected characteristic(s).

The protected characteristics under UK law are:

• age
• gender reassignment
• being married or in a civil partnership
• being pregnant or on maternity leave
• disability
• race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation