In 2025, more people than ever before turned to Germany’s Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency for advice. Ferda Ataman, the independent federal commissioner for anti-discrimination, believes these people need better legal protections and more support services.
It’s not just about protecting minorities, Ataman emphasized during the presentation of the agency’s 2025 annual report on Tuesday.
“Anyone could experience discrimination at some point in their lives,” she said. What matters to her is that “all people in Germany” receive adequate protection.
According to the report, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency received 13,067 requests for counseling last year — 1,662 more than in 2024, and more than three times as many as in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ataman said this number is only the tip of the iceberg, highlighting the comprehensive findings from the German Socio-Economic Panel presented a few months ago. According to its report, more than 13% of people in Germany reported having experienced discrimination in the past 12 months. Extrapolated, that amounts to about 9 million people — and only a fraction of those affected reported incidents to the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency.
The agency was created following the enactment of the General Act on Equal Treatment in 2006, which was designed to prevent and eliminate various forms of discrimination, as stipulated in the German Basic Law, the country’s constitution.
Racism, or discrimination based on a person’s (perceived) ethnic origin, was by far the most common form of discrimination reported to the agency. With 4,571 reports, racism accounted for 43% of all cases, a figure that has remained fairly consistent over the past three years.
The same was true for the second-most common form of discrimination reported: discrimination against those with disabilities or chronic illnesses. In 2025, around 28% of cases involved this form of discrimination, which was a slightly higher percentage than in previous years. Around 22% of cases involved discrimination based on gender or gender identity, which was only slightly lower than in previous years.
Racism ‘not a specifically German problem’
Deborah Choi, a startup founder and CEO based in Berlin, describes what racial discrimination means in concrete terms. Born in Nigeria, she grew up in the US before moving to Germany.
“As a Black woman, I regularly face racism and sexism — whether I’m building startups or just walking through Berlin,” she said in the report. For her, however, racism is “not a specifically German problem, but a global one.”
“Many people have to do a lot more just to be given the same opportunities,” she said.
Ataman is an independent commissioner, which means she doesn’t answer to the federal government and cannot be dismissed by the chancellor. She was elected by the Bundestag for a five-year term in the summer of 2022. The nomination came from the then-federal government, which consisted of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the environmentalist Greens and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party.
Ataman is highly critical of the reform of the 2006 Equal Treatment Act that has been put forward by the current federal government, which is made up of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) and the SPD. This is the first significant amendment to the law since it was introduced 20 years ago by a previous CDU/CSU-SPD coalition — passed because the previous SPD/Green government had already signed it into law, not out of political conviction.
Limited resources to fight discrimination in Germany
Ataman said the current framework for her work is inadequate and that the resources — including funds — are far too limited. She pointed out that every other country in Europe invests more in anti-discrimination efforts than Germany does.
Citing neighboring Belgium as an example, she said the country allocates €1 per resident to the work of its anti-discrimination agency, totaling around €10 million ($11.6 million). Germany most recently allocated €10.4 million — for a population of more than 83 million.
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But for Ataman, concrete policies are even more important than funding. She said it’s crucial, for example, that Germany lengthen the period within which victims can take legal action against discrimination. At the moment, the time limit in Germany is two months.
Under the current government’s plans, this will be extended to four months. But Ataman notes that EU countries typically allow victims between three and five years to file a complaint. Only with sufficient time, she said, is it possible for victims to receive thorough legal advice and properly review a case.
In addition, she said, victims of discrimination by government agencies, authorities or employees have been unable to file lawsuits against these agencies since 2006.
“The state should not be exempt,” she emphasized.
‘Peaceful coexistence’ needs to be guided by rules
Ataman also raised the issue of what would happen “if it is not a person but a computer program — that is, AI or an algorithm — that discriminates.”
She hopes the Bundestag will make significant changes to the government’s draft bill during the upcoming parliamentary session. She herself was barely involved in the process, and was only informed shortly before the draft bill of the proposed reforms was passed by the Federal Cabinet.
For over three years now, more than 120 organizations have been calling for more comprehensive legal protection against discrimination through an alliance called AGG Reform Now! For Ataman, this “unusual alliance, which has never come together like this before,” is a reflection of the “full diversity” of society.
The General Act on Equal Treatment (AGG) is like a “set of traffic rules for peaceful coexistence in Germany,” she said. Discrimination occurs all the time, she added — that’s why we need rules that are just as effective as those governing road traffic.
This article was originally written in German.
