Discrimination

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

In human social affairs, discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction towards, a person based on the group, class, or category to which the person is perceived to belong. These include age, colour, convictions for which a pardon has been granted or a record suspended, disability, ethnicity, family status, gender identity, genetic characteristics, marital status, nationality, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. Discrimination consists of treatment of an individual or group, based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or social category, "in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated". It involves the group's initial reaction or interaction going on to influence the individual's actual behavior towards the group leader or the group, restricting members of one group from opportunities or privileges that are available to another group, leading to the exclusion of the individual or entities based on illogical or irrational decision making. 

Discriminatory traditions, policies, ideas, practices and laws exist in many countries and institutions in every part of the world, including in territories where discrimination is generally looked down upon. In some places, controversial attempts such as quotas have been used to benefit those who are believed to be current or past victims of discrimination—but they have sometimes been called reverse discrimination.

Etymology

The term discriminate appeared in the early 17th century in the English language. It is from the Latin discriminat- 'distinguished between', from the verb discriminare, from discrimen 'distinction', from the verb discernere. Since the American Civil War the term "discrimination" generally evolved in American English usage as an understanding of prejudicial treatment of an individual based solely on their race, later generalized as membership in a certain socially undesirable group or social category. "Discrimination" derives from Latin, where the verb discrimire means "to separate, to distinguish, to make a distinction".

Definitions

Moral philosophers have defined discrimination as disadvantageous treatment or consideration. This is a comparative definition. An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. They just need to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason. If someone decides to donate to help orphan children, but decides to donate less, say, to black children out of a racist attitude, then they would be acting in a discriminatory way despite the fact that the people they discriminate against actually benefit by receiving a donation. In addition to this discrimination develops into a source of oppression. It is similar to the action of recognizing someone as 'different' so much that they are treated inhumanly and degraded.

Based on realistic-conflict theory and social-identity theory, Rubin and Hewstone have highlighted a distinction among three types of discrimination:

1. Realistic competition is driven by self-interest and is aimed at obtaining material resources (e.g., food, territory, customers) for the in-group (e.g., favouring an in-group in order to obtain more resources for its members, including the self).
2. Social competition is driven by the need for self-esteem and is aimed at achieving a positive social status for the in-group relative to comparable out-groups (e.g., favouring an in-group in order to make it better than an out-group).
3. Consensual discrimination is driven by the need for accuracy and reflects stable and legitimate intergroup status hierarchies (e.g., favouring a high-status in-group because it is high status).

The United Nations stance on discrimination includes the statement: "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection." International bodies United Nations Human Rights Council work towards helping ending discrimination around the world.

Types

Age

Ageism or age discrimination is discrimination and stereotyping based on the grounds of someone's age. It is a set of beliefs, norms, and values which used to justify discrimination or subordination based on a person's age. Ageism is most often directed towards old people, or adolescents and children.

Age discrimination in hiring has been shown to exist in the United States. Joanna Lahey, professor at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, found that firms are more than 40% more likely to interview a young adult job applicant than an older job applicant. In Europe, Stijn Baert, Jennifer Norga, Yannick Thuy and Marieke Van Hecke, researchers at Ghent University, measured comparable ratios in Belgium. They found that age discrimination is heterogeneous by the activity older candidates undertook during their additional post-educational years. In Belgium, they are only discriminated if they have more years of inactivity or irrelevant employment.

In a survey for the University of Kent, England, 29% of respondents stated that they had suffered from age discrimination. This is a higher proportion than for gender or racial discrimination. Dominic Abrams, social psychology professor at the university, concluded that ageism is the most pervasive form of prejudice experienced in the UK population.

Caste

According to UNICEF and Human Rights Watch, caste discrimination affects an estimated 250 million people worldwide. Discrimination based on caste, as perceived by UNICEF, is mainly prevalent in parts of Asia, (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Nepal, Japan), Africa and others. As of 2011, there were 200 million Dalits or Scheduled Castes (formerly known as "untouchables") in India.

Disability

Discrimination against people with disabilities in favor of people who are not is called ableism or disablism. Disability discrimination, which treats non-disabled individuals as the standard of 'normal living', results in public and private places and services, education, and social work that are built to serve 'standard' people, thereby excluding those with various disabilities. Studies have shown, employment is needed to not only provide a living but to sustain mental health and well-being. Work fulfils a number of basic needs for an individual such as collective purpose, social contact, status, and activity. A person with a disability is often found to be socially isolated and work is one way to reduce isolation.

In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act mandates the provision of equality of access to both buildings and services and is paralleled by similar acts in other countries, such as the Equality Act 2010 in the UK.

Language

Nationalists in Corsica sometimes spray-paint or shoot traffic signs in French.

Diversity of language is protected and respected by most nations who value cultural diversity. However, people are sometimes subjected to different treatment because their preferred language is associated with a particular group, class or category. Notable examples are the Anti-French sentiment in the United States as well as the Anti-Quebec sentiment in Canada targeting people who speak the French language. Commonly, the preferred language is just another attribute of separate ethnic groups. Discrimination exists if there is prejudicial treatment against a person or a group of people who either do or do not speak a particular language or languages.

Another noteworthy example of linguistic discrimination is the backdrop to the Bengali Language Movement in erstwhile Pakistan, a political campaign that played a key role in the creation of Bangladesh. In 1948, Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared Urdu as the national language of Pakistan and branded those supporting the use of Bengali, the most widely spoken language in the state, as enemies of the state.

Language discrimination is suggested to be labeled linguicism or logocism. Anti-discriminatory and inclusive efforts to accommodate persons who speak different languages or cannot have fluency in the country's predominant or "official" language, is bilingualism such as official documents in two languages, and multiculturalism in more than two languages.

Name

Discrimination based on a person's name may also occur, with research suggesting the presence of discrimination based on name meaning, pronunciation, uniqueness, gender affiliation, and racial affiliation. Research has further shown that real world recruiters spend an average of just six seconds reviewing each résumé before making their initial "fit/no fit" screen-out decision and that a person's name is one of the six things they focus on most. France has made it illegal to view a person's name on a résumé when screening for the initial list of most qualified candidates. Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands have also experimented with name-blind résumé processes. Some apparent discrimination may be explained by other factors such as name frequency. The effects of name discrimination based on name fluency is subtle, small and subject significantly to changing norms.

Nationality

Discrimination on the basis of nationality is usually included in employment laws. It is sometimes referred to as bound together with racial discrimination although it can be separate. It may vary from laws that stop refusals of hiring based on nationality, asking questions regarding origin, to prohibitions of firing, forced retirement, compensation and pay, etc., based on nationality.

Discrimination on the basis of nationality may show as a "level of acceptance" in a sport or work team regarding new team members and employees who differ from the nationality of the majority of team members.

In the UAE and other GCC states, for instance, nationality is not frequently given to residents and expatriates. In the workplace, preferential treatment is given to full citizens, even though many of them lack experience or motivation to do the job. State benefits are also generally available for citizens only.

Race or ethnicity

Anti-Arab sign in Pattaya Beach, Thailand

 

German warning in German-occupied Poland 1939 - "No entrance for Poles!"

 

Antisemitic graffiti in Lithuania. The signs read "Jews out" and "Hate"

 

An African-American child at a segregated drinking fountain on a courthouse lawn, North Carolina, US 1938.

Racial and ethnic discrimination differentiates individuals on the basis of real and perceived racial and ethnic differences and leads to various forms of the ethnic penalty. It has been official government policy in several countries, such as South Africa during the apartheid era. Discriminatory policies towards ethnic minorities include the race-based discrimination of ethnic Indians and Chinese in Malaysia After the Vietnam war, many Vietnamese refugees moved to the United States, where they face discrimination. Many studies report lower private sector earnings for racial minorities, although it is often difficult to determine the extent to which this is the result of racial discrimination.

As of 2013, aboriginal people (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) comprise 4 percent of Canada's population, but they account for 23.2 percent of the federal prison population. According to the Australian government's June 2006 publication of prison statistics, Aborigines make up 24% of the overall prison population in Australia.

In 2004, Māori made up just 15% of the total population of New Zealand but 49.5% of prisoners. Māori were entering prison at eight times the rate of non-Māori. A quarter of the people in England's prisons are from an ethnic minority. The Equality and Human Rights Commission found that in England and Wales as of 2010, a black person was five times more likely to be imprisoned than a white person. The discrepancy was attributed to "decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system".

In the United States, racial profiling of minorities by law-enforcement officials has been called racial discrimination.

Within the criminal justice system in the United States, minorities are convicted and imprisoned disproportionately when compared to the majority. As early as 1866, the Civil Rights Act and Civil Rights Act of 1871 provided a remedy for intentional racism in employment by private employers and state and local public employers. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 expanded the damages available in Title VII cases and granted Title VII plaintiffs the right to a jury trial.

Racial discrimination in hiring has been shown to exist in the United States and in Europe. Using a field experiment, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan showed that applications from job candidates with white-sounding names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than those with African-American-sounding names in the United States at the start of this millennium. A 2009 study by Devah Pager, Bruce Western, and Bart Bonikowski found that black applicants to low-wage jobs were half as likely as identically qualified white applicants to receive callbacks or job offers. More recently, Stijn Baert, Bart Cockx, Niels Gheyle and Cora Vandamme replicated and extended their field experiment in Belgium, Europe. They found that racial discrimination in the labour market is heterogeneous by the labour market tightness in the occupation: compared to natives, candidates with a foreign-sounding name are equally often invited to a job interview in Belgium if they apply for occupations for which vacancies are difficult to fill, but they have to send twice as many applications for occupations for which labor market tightness is low.

Region

Regional or geographic discrimination is discrimination based on the region in which a person lives or was born. It differs from national discrimination in that it may not be based on national borders or the country the victim lives in, but is instead based on prejudices against a specific region of one or more countries. Examples include discrimination against Chinese born in countryside far from city within China, and discrimination against Americans from the southern or northern regions of the United States. It is often accompanied by discrimination based on accent, dialect, or cultural differences.

Religious beliefs

In the 1990s, Bhutan expelled or forced to leave its Hindu population in the name of preserving its Buddhist culture and identity.

Religious discrimination is valuing or treating a person or group differently because of what they do or do not believe or because of their feelings towards a given religion. For instance, the indigenous Christian population of the Balkans, known as the "rayah" or the "protected flock", was discriminated against under the Ottoman Kanun–i–Rayah. The word is sometimes translated as 'cattle' rather than 'flock' or 'subjects' in order to emphasize the Christian population's inferior status to that of the Muslim rayah.

Restrictions upon Jewish occupations were imposed by Christian authorities. Local rulers and church officials closed many professions to religious Jews, pushing them into marginal roles considered socially inferior, such as tax and rent collecting and moneylending, occupations only tolerated as a "necessary evil". The number of Jews permitted to reside in different places was limited; they were concentrated in ghettos and were not allowed to own land.

In a 1979 consultation on the issue, the United States commission on civil rights defined religious discrimination in relation to the civil rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Whereas religious civil liberties, such as the right to hold or not to hold a religious belief, are essential for Freedom of Religion (in the United States secured by the First Amendment), religious discrimination occurs when someone is denied "the equal protection of the laws, equality of status under the law, equal treatment in the administration of justice, and equality of opportunity and access to employment, education, housing, public services and facilities, and public accommodation because of their exercise of their right to religious freedom".

In 2015, attorney and author Roberta Kaplan stated that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis "is the clearest example of someone who wants to use a religious liberty argument to discriminate".

Sex, sex characteristics, gender, and gender identity

Though gender discrimination and sexism refer to beliefs and attitudes in relation to the gender of a person, such beliefs and attitudes are of a social nature and do not, normally, carry any legal consequences. Sex discrimination, on the other hand, may have legal consequences. Though what constitutes sex discrimination varies between countries, the essence is that it is an adverse action taken by one person against another person that would not have occurred had the person been of another sex. Discrimination of that nature is considered a form of prejudice and in certain enumerated circumstances is illegal in many countries.

Sexual discrimination can arise in different contexts. For instance, an employee may be discriminated against by being asked discriminatory questions during a job interview, or by an employer not hiring or promoting, unequally paying, or wrongfully terminating, an employee based on their gender.

The gender gap in median earnings of full-time employees according to the OECD 2015.

 

Sexual discrimination can also arise when the dominant group holds a bias against the minority group. One such example is Wikipedia. In the Wikipedian community, around 13 percent of registered users are women. This creates gender imbalances, and leaves room for systemic bias. Women are not only more harshly scrutinized, but the representation of women authors are also overlooked. Relative to men, across all source lists, women have a 2.6 greater odds of omission in Wikipedia. In an educational setting, there could be claims that a student was excluded from an educational institution, program, opportunity, loan, student group, or scholarship because of their gender. In the housing setting, there could be claims that a person was refused negotiations on seeking a house, contracting/leasing a house or getting a loan based on their gender. Another setting where there have been claims of gender discrimination is banking; for example if one is refused credit or is offered unequal loan terms based on one's gender. As with other forms of unlawful discrimination, there are two types of sex discrimination – direct discrimination and indirect discrimination. Direct sex discrimination is fairly easy to spot – 'Barmaid wanted', but indirect sex discrimination, where an unnecessary requirement puts one sex at a disproportionate disadvantage compared to the opposite sex, is sometimes less easy to spot, although some are obvious – 'Bar person wanted – must look good in a mini skirt'. Another setting where there is usually gender discrimination is when one is refused to extend their credit, refused approval of credit/loan process, and if there is a burden of unequal loan terms based on one's gender. Socially, sexual differences have been used to justify different roles for men and women, in some cases giving rise to claims of primary and secondary roles. While there are alleged non-physical differences between men and women, major reviews of the academic literature on gender difference find only a tiny minority of characteristics where there are consistent psychological differences between men and women, and these relate directly to experiences grounded in biological difference. However, there are also some psychological differences in regard to how problems are dealt with and emotional perceptions and reactions that may relate to hormones and the successful characteristics of each gender during longstanding roles in past primitive lifestyles.

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, by sex, race, and ethnicity, U.S., 2009.

 

Unfair discrimination usually follows the gender stereotyping held by a society.

The United Nations had concluded that women often experience a "glass ceiling" and that there are no societies in which women enjoy the same opportunities as men. The term "glass ceiling" is used to describe a perceived barrier to advancement in employment based on discrimination, especially sex discrimination. In the United States in 1995, the Glass Ceiling Commission, a government-funded group, stated: "Over half of all Master's degrees are now awarded to women, yet 95% of senior-level managers, of the top Fortune 1000 industrial and 500 service companies are men. Of them, 97% are white." In its report, it recommended affirmative action, which is the consideration of an employee's gender and race in hiring and promotion decisions, as a means to end this form of discrimination. As of 2010, women accounted for 51% of workers in high-paying management, professional, and related occupations. They outnumbered men in such occupations as public relations managers, financial managers, and human resource managers.

In addition, women are found to experience a sticky floor. While a glass ceiling implies that women are less like to reach the top of the job ladder, a sticky floor is defined as the pattern that women are, compared to men, less likely to start to climb the job ladder. A sticky floor is related to gender differences at the bottom of the wage distribution. It might be explained by both employer discrimination and gender differences in career aspirations.

Intersex persons experience discrimination due to innate, atypical sex characteristics. Multiple jurisdictions now protect individuals on grounds of intersex status or sex characteristics. South Africa was the first country to explicitly add intersex to legislation, as part of the attribute of 'sex'. Australia was the first country to add an independent attribute, of 'intersex status'. Malta was the first to adopt a broader framework of 'sex characteristics', through legislation that also ended modifications to the sex characteristics of minors undertaken for social and cultural reasons.

Transgender individuals, whether male-to-female, female-to-male, or genderqueer, often experience transphobic problems that often lead to dismissals, underachievement, difficulty in finding a job, social isolation, and, occasionally, violent attacks against them. Nevertheless, the problem of gender discrimination does not stop at transgender individuals or with women. Men are often the victim in certain areas of employment as men begin to seek work in office and childcare settings traditionally perceived as "women's jobs". One such situation seems to be evident in a recent case concerning alleged YMCA discrimination and a Federal Court Case in Texas. The case actually involves alleged discrimination against both men and black people in childcare, even when they pass the same strict background tests and other standards of employment. It is currently being contended in federal court, as of fall 2009.

Discrimination in slasher films is relevant. Gloria Cowan had a research group study on 57 different slasher films. Their results showed that the non-surviving females were more frequently sexual than the surviving females and the non-surviving males. Surviving as a female slasher victim was strongly associated with the absence of sexual behavior. In slasher films, the message appears to be that sexual women get killed and only the pure women survive, thus reinforcing the idea that female sexuality can be costly.

Sexual orientation

LGBT activists at Cologne Pride carrying a banner with the flags of over 70 countries where homosexuality is illegal.

 

Protests in New York City against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

One's sexual orientation is a "predilection for homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality". Like most minority groups, homosexuals and bisexuals are vulnerable to prejudice and discrimination from the majority group. They may experience hatred from others because of their sexual preferences; a term for such hatred based upon one’s sexual orientation is often called homophobia. Many continue to hold negative feelings towards those with non-heterosexual orientations and will discriminate against people who have them or are thought to have them. People of other uncommon sexual orientations also experience discrimination. One study found its sample of heterosexuals to be more prejudiced against asexuals than to homosexuals or bisexuals.

Employment discrimination based on sexual orientation varies by country. Revealing a lesbian sexual orientation (by means of mentioning an engagement in a rainbow organisation or by mentioning one's partner name) lowers employment opportunities in Cyprus and Greece but overall, it has no negative effect in Sweden and Belgium. In the latter country, even a positive effect of revealing a lesbian sexual orientation is found for women at their fertile ages.

Besides these academic studies, in 2009, ILGA published a report based on research carried out by Daniel Ottosson at Södertörn University College, Stockholm, Sweden. This research found that of the 80 countries around the world that continue to consider homosexuality illegal, five carry the death penalty for homosexual activity, and two do in some regions of the country. In the report, this is described as "State sponsored homophobia". This happens in Islamic states, or in two cases regions under Islamic authority. On February 5, 2005, the IRIN issued a reported titled "Iraq: Male homosexuality still a taboo". The article stated, among other things that honor killings by Iraqis against a gay family member are common and given some legal protection. In August 2009, Human Rights Watch published an extensive report detailing torture of men accused of being gay in Iraq, including the blocking of men's anuses with glue and then giving the men laxatives. Although gay marriage has been legal in South Africa since 2006, same-sex unions are often condemned as "un-African". Research conducted in 2009 shows 86% of black lesbians from the Western Cape live in fear of sexual assault.

A number of countries, especially those in the Western world, have passed measures to alleviate discrimination against sexual minorities, including laws against anti-gay hate crimes and workplace discrimination. Some have also legalized same-sex marriage or civil unions in order to grant same-sex couples the same protections and benefits as opposite-sex couples. In 2011, the United Nations passed its first resolution recognizing LGBT rights.

Drug use

Global Marijuana March, Paris.

Drug use discrimination is the unequal treatment people experience because of the drugs they use. People who use or have used illicit drugs may face discrimination in employment, welfare, housing, child custody, and travel, in addition to imprisonment, asset forfeiture, and in some cases forced labor, torture, and execution. Though often prejudicially stereotyped as deviants and misfits, most drug users are well-adjusted and productive members of society. Drug prohibitions may have been partly motivated by racism and other prejudice against minorities, and racial disparities have been found to exist in the enforcement and prosecution of drug laws. Discrimination due to illicit drug use was the most commonly reported type of discrimination among Blacks and Latinos in a 2003 study of minority drug users in New York City, double to triple that due to race. People who use legal drugs such as tobacco and prescription medications may also face discrimination.

Ideas of self-ownership and cognitive liberty affirm rights to use drugs, whether for medicine recreation, or spiritual fulfilment. Those espousing such ideas question the legality of drug prohibition and cite the rights and freedoms enshrined in such documents as the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as protecting personal drug choices. They are inspired by and see themselves following in the tradition of those who have struggled against other forms of discrimination in the past.

Drug policy reform organizations such as the Drug Policy Alliance, the Drug Equality Alliance, the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, and the Beckley Foundation have highlighted the issue of stigma and discrimination in drug policy. The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids also recognizes this issue and shares on its website stories that "break through the stigma and discrimination that people with drug or drinking problems often face."

A report issued by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, critical of the global war on drugs, states, under "Undermining Human Rights, Fostering Discrimination":

Punitive approaches to drug policy are severely undermining human rights in every region of the world. They lead to the erosion of civil liberties and fair trial standards, the stigmatization of individuals and groups – particularly women, young people, and ethnic minorities – and the imposition of abusive and inhumane punishments.

Although still illegal at the federal level, about half of U.S. states have legalized marijuana for medical use and several of those states have laws, or are considering legislation, specifically protecting medical marijuana patients from discrimination in such areas as education, employment, housing, child custody, and organ transplantation.

Reverse discrimination

Students protesting against racial quotas in Brazil: "Quer uma vaga? Passe no vestibular!" ("Do you want a spot? Pass the entrance exam!")

In the US, a government policy known as affirmative action was instituted to encourage employers and universities to seek out and accept groups such as African Americans and women, who have been subject to discrimination for a long time.

Some attempts at antidiscrimination have been criticized as reverse discrimination. In particular, minority quotas (for example, affirmative action) may discriminate against members of a dominant or majority group or other minority groups. In its opposition to race preferences, the American Civil Rights Institute's Ward Connerly stated, "There is nothing positive, affirmative, or equal about 'affirmative action' programs that give preference to some groups based on race."

Legislation

Australia

• Sex Discrimination Act 1984

Canada

• Ontario Human Rights Code 1962
• Canadian Human Rights Act 1977

Hong Kong

• Sex Discrimination Ordinance (1996)

Israel

• Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry into Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law, 2000
• Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law, 1988

Netherlands

• Article 137c, part 1 of Wetboek van Strafrecht prohibits insults towards a group because of its race, religion, sexual orientation (straight or gay), handicap (somatically, mental or psychiatric) in public or by speech, by writing or by a picture. Maximum imprisonment one year of imprisonment or a fine of the third category.
• Part 2 increases the maximum imprisonment to two years and the maximum fine category to 4, when the crime is committed as a habit or is committed by two or more persons.
• Article 137d prohibits provoking to discrimination or hate against the group described above. Same penalties apply as in article 137c.
• Article 137e part 1 prohibits publishing a discriminatory statement, other than in formal message, or hands over an object (that contains discriminatory information) otherwise than on his request. Maximum imprisonment is 6 months or a fine of the third category.
• Part 2 increases the maximum imprisonment to one year and the maximum fine category to 4, when the crime is committed as a habit or committed by two or more persons.
• Article 137f prohibits supporting discriminatory activities by giving money or goods. Maximum imprisonment is 3 months or a fine of the second category.

United Kingdom

• Equal Pay Act 1970 – provides for equal pay for comparable work
• Sex Discrimination Act 1975 – makes discrimination against women or men, including discrimination on the grounds of marital status, illegal in the workplace.
• Human Rights Act 1998 – provides more scope for redressing all forms of discriminatory imbalances

United States

• Equal Pay Act of 1963^[147] – (part of the Fair Labor Standards Act) – prohibits wage discrimination by employers and labor organizations based on sex
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 – many provisions, including broadly prohibiting discrimination in the workplace including hiring, firing, workforce reduction, benefits, and sexually harassing conduct
• Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity is charged with administering and enforcing the Act.
• Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – covers discrimination based upon pregnancy in the workplace
• Violence Against Women Act
• Racism is still rampant in real estate

United Nations documents

Important UN documents addressing discrimination include:

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. It states that:" Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
• The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. The Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination. The convention was adopted and opened for signature by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1965, and entered into force on 4 January 1969.
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an international bill of rights for women, it came into force on 3 September 1981.
• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights instrument treaty of the United Nations. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 December 2006, and opened for signature on 30 March 2007. Following ratification by the 20th party, it came into force on 3 May 2008.

Theories

Social theories such as egalitarianism assert that social equality should prevail. In some societies, including most developed countries, each individual's civil rights include the right to be free from government sponsored social discrimination. Due to a belief in the capacity to perceive pain or suffering shared by all animals, "abolitionist" or "vegan" egalitarianism maintains that the interests of every individual (regardless its species), warrant equal consideration with the interests of humans, and that not doing so is "speciesist".

Labeling theory

Discrimination, in labeling theory, takes form as mental categorization of minorities and the use of stereotype. This theory describes difference as deviance from the norm, which results in internal devaluation and social stigma that may be seen as discrimination. It is started by describing a "natural" social order. It is distinguished between the fundamental principle of fascism and social democracy. The Nazis in 1930s-era Germany and the pre-1990 Apartheid government of South Africa used racially discriminatory agendas for their political ends. This practice continues with some present day governments.

Game theory

Economist Yanis Varoufakis (2013) argues that "discrimination based on utterly arbitrary characteristics evolves quickly and systematically in the experimental laboratory", and that neither classical game theory nor neoclassical economics can explain this. Varoufakis and Shaun Hargreaves-Heap (2002) ran an experiment where volunteers played a computer-mediated, multiround hawk-dove game (HD game). At the start of each session, each participant was assigned a color at random, either red or blue. At each round, each player learned the color assigned to his or her opponent, but nothing else about the opponent. Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis found that the players' behavior within a session frequently developed a discriminatory convention, giving a Nash equilibrium where players of one color (the "advantaged" color) consistently played the aggressive "hawk" strategy against players of the other, "disadvantaged" color, who played the acquiescent "dove" strategy against the advantaged color. Players of both colors used a mixed strategy when playing against players assigned the same color as their own.

The experimenters then added a cooperation option to the game, and found that disadvantaged players usually cooperated with each other, while advantaged players usually did not. They state that while the equilibria reached in the original HD game are predicted by evolutionary game theory, game theory does not explain the emergence of cooperation in the disadvantaged group. Citing earlier psychological work of Matthew Rabin, they hypothesize that a norm of differing entitlements emerges across the two groups, and that this norm could define a "fairness" equilibrium within the disadvantaged group.

State vs. free market

It is debated as to whether or not markets discourage discrimination brought about by the state. One argument is that since discrimination restricts access to customers and incurs additional expense, market logic will punish discrimination. Opposition by companies to "Jim Crow" segregation laws is an example of this. An alternative argument is that markets don't necessarily undermine discrimination, as it is argued that if discrimination is profitable by catering to the "tastes" of individuals (which is the point of the market), then the market will not punish discrimination. It is argued that microeconomic analysis of discrimination uses unusual methods to determine its effects (using explicit treatment of production functions) and that the very existence of discrimination in employment (defined as wages which differ from marginal product of the discriminated employees) in the long run contradicts claims that the market will function well and punish discrimination.

Persecution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, imprisonment, internment, fear, or pain are all factors that may establish persecution, but not all suffering will necessarily establish persecution. The suffering experienced by the victim must be sufficiently severe. The threshold level of severity has been a source of much debate.

International law

As part of the Nuremberg Principles, crimes against humanity are part of international law. Principle VI of the Nuremberg Principles states that

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:...
(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Telford Taylor, who was Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials wrote "[at] the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the tribunals rebuffed several efforts by the prosecution to bring such 'domestic' atrocities within the scope of international law as 'crimes against humanity'". Several subsequent international treaties incorporate this principle, but some have dropped the restriction "in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime" that is in Nuremberg Principles.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which is binding on 111 states, defines crimes against humanity in Article 7.1. The article criminalises certain acts "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack". These include:

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender...or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph [e.g. murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, apartheid, and other inhumane acts] or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court

Religious

Religious persecution is systematic mistreatment of an individual or group due to their religious affiliation. Not only theorists of secularization (who presume a decline of religiosity in general) would willingly assume that religious persecution is a thing of the past. However, with the rise of fundamentalism and religiously related terrorism, this assumption has become even more controversial. Indeed, in many countries of the world today, religious persecution is a Human Rights problem.

Atheists

Atheists have experienced persecution throughout history. Persecution may refer to unwarranted arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture, or execution. It also may refer to the confiscation or destruction of property.

Bahá'ís

The persecution of Bahá'ís refers to the religious persecution of Bahá'ís in various countries, especially in Iran, which has one of the largest Bahá'í populations in the world. The Bahá'í Faith originated in Iran, and it represents the largest religious minority in that country.

Christians

Main article: Persecution of Christians

 

A Christian Dirce, by Henryk Siemiradzki. A Christian woman is martyred under Nero in this re-enactment of the myth of Dirce (painting by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1897, National Museum, Warsaw).

The persecution of Christians is religious persecution that Christians may undergo as a consequence of professing their faith, both historically and in the current era. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith at the hands of both Jews from whose religion Christianity arose and the Roman Empire which controlled much of the land across which early Christianity was distributed. Early in the fourth century, the religion was legalized by the Edict of Milan, and it eventually became the State church of the Roman Empire.

Christian missionaries, as well as the people that they converted to Christianity, have been the target of persecution, many times to the point of being martyred for their faith.

There is also a history of individual Christian denominations suffering persecution at the hands of other Christians under the charge of heresy, particularly during the 16th century Protestant Reformation as well as throughout the Middle Ages when various Christian groups deemed heretical were persecuted by the Papacy.

In the 20th century, Christians have been persecuted by various groups, and by atheistic states such as the USSR and North Korea. During the Second World War members of many Christian churches were persecuted in Germany for resisting the Nazi ideology.

In more recent times the Christian missionary organization Open Doors (UK) estimates 100 million Christians face persecution, particularly in Muslim-dominated countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. According to the International Society for Human Rights, up to 80% of all acts of persecution are directed against people of the Christian faith.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism)

With the Missouri extermination order Mormons became the only religious group to have a state of the United States legalize the extermination of their religion. This was after a speech given by Sideny Rigdon called the July 4th Oration which while meant to state that Mormons would defend their lives and property was taken as inflammatory. Their forcible expulsion from the state caused the death of over a hundred due to exposure, starvation, and resulting illnesses. The Mormons suffered through tarring and feathering, their lands and possessions being repeatedly taken from them, mob attacks, false imprisonments, and the US sending an army to Utah to deal with the "Mormon problem" in the Utah War which resulted in the Mormons massacring settlers at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. A government militia slaughtered Mormons in what is now known as the Haun's Mill massacre. The founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was killed in Carthage, Illinois by a mob of about 200 men, almost all of whom were members of the Illinois state militia including some members of the militia who were assigned to guard him.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Throughout the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, their beliefs, doctrines and practices have engendered controversy and opposition from local governments, communities, and mainstream Christian groups.

Falun Gong

Falun Gong was introduced to the general public by Li Hongzhi(李洪志) in Changchun, China, in 1992. For the next few years, Falun Gong was the fastest growing qigong practice in Chinese history and, by 1999, there were between 70 and 100 million people practicing Falun Gong in China. Following the seven years of widespread popularity, on July 20, 1999, the government of the People's Republic of China began a nationwide persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. In late 1999, legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions" and retroactively applied to Falun Gong. Amnesty International states that the persecution is "politically motivated" with "legislation being used retroactively to convict people on politically-driven charges, and new regulations introduced to further restrict fundamental freedoms".

Hindus

Persecution of Hindus refers to the religious persecution inflicted upon Hindus. Hindus have been historically persecuted during the Islamic rule of the Indian subcontinent and during Portuguese rule of Goa. In modern times, Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh have also suffered persecution. Most recently, thousands of Hindus from Sindh province in Pakistan have been fleeing to India voicing fear for their safety. After the Partition of India in 1947, there were 8.8 million Hindus in Pakistan (excluding Bangladesh) in 1951. In 1951, Hindus constituted 22% of the Pakistani population (including present-day Bangladesh which formed part of Pakistan). Today, the Hindu minority amounts to 1.7 percent of Pakistan's population.

The Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) resulted in one of the largest genocides of the 20th century. While estimates of the number of casualties was 3,000,000, it is reasonably certain that Hindus bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistan Army's onslaught against the Bengali population of what was East Pakistan. An article in Time magazine dated 2 August 1971, stated "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred." Senator Edward Kennedy wrote in a report that was part of United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations testimony dated 1 November 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad". In the same report, Senator Kennedy reported that 80% of the refugees in India were Hindus and according to numerous international relief agencies such as UNESCO and World Health Organization the number of East Pakistani refugees at their peak in India was close to 10 million. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sydney Schanberg wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (by "Muslim army", meaning the Pakistan Army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well), (Newsday, 29 April 1994).

In Bangladesh, on 28 February 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, the Vice President of the Jamaat-e-Islami to death for the war crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Following the sentence, activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir attacked the Hindus in different parts of the country. Hindu properties were looted, Hindu houses were burnt into ashes and Hindu temples were desecrated and set on fire. The violence included the looting of Hindu properties and businesses, the burning of Hindu homes, the rape of Hindu women, and the desecration and destruction of, according to community leaders, more than 50 Hindu temples; 1,500 Hindu homes were destroyed in 20 districts. While the government has held the Jamaat-e-Islami responsible for the attacks on the minorities, the Jamaat-e-Islami leadership has denied any involvement. The minority leaders have protested the attacks and appealed for justice. The Supreme Court of Bangladesh has directed the law enforcement to start suo motu investigation into the attacks. US Ambassador to Bangladesh express concern about attack of Jamaat on Bengali Hindu community.

Jews

Kaunas pogrom in German-occupied Lithuania, June 1941

Persecution of Jews is a recurring phenomenon throughout Jewish history. It has occurred on numerous occasions and in widely different geographical locations. It may include pogroms, looting and demolition of private and public Jewish property (e.g., Kristallnacht), unwarranted arrest, imprisonment, torture, killing, or even mass execution (in World War II alone, approximately 6 million people were deliberately killed for the sole reason of being Jewish). They have been expelled from their hometowns/countries, hoping to find havens in other polities. In recent times anti-Semitism has often been manifested as Anti-Zionism, despite the fact that there are various Jewish groups whose members themselves oppose the idea of Zionism.

Muslims

Mass grave where events of the Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims unfolded

The Persecution of Muslims has been a recurring phenomenon throughout the history of Islam. Persecution may refer to unwarranted arrest, imprisonment, beatings, torture, or execution. It may also refer to the confiscation or destruction of property, or incitement to hate Muslims.

Persecution can extend beyond those who perceive themselves to be Muslims and include those who are perceived by others as Muslims, or it can include Muslims who are considered non-Muslims by fellow Muslims. The Ahmadiyya regard themselves as Muslims, but are seen by many other Muslims as non-Muslims and "heretics". In 1984, the Government of Pakistan, under General Zia-ul-Haq, passed Ordinance XX, which banned proselytizing by Ahmadis and also banned Ahmadis from referring to themselves as Muslims. According to this ordinance, any Ahmadi who refers to oneself as a Muslim by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, directly or indirectly, or makes the call for prayer as other Muslims do, is punishable by imprisonment of up to 3 years. Because of these difficulties, Mirza Tahir Ahmad migrated to London, UK.

Sikhs

The 1984 anti-Sikh riots or the 1984 Sikh Massacre was a series of pogroms directed against Sikhs in India, by anti-Sikh mobs, in response to the assassination of Indira Gandhi, on 31 October 1984, by two of her Sikh bodyguards in response to her actions authorising the military operation Operation Blue Star. There were more than 8,000 deaths, including 3,000 in Delhi. In June 1984, during Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to attack the Golden Temple and eliminate any insurgents, as it had been occupied by Sikh separatists who were stockpiling weapons. Later operations by Indian paramilitary forces were initiated to clear the separatists from the countryside of Punjab state.

The Indian government reported 2,700 deaths in the ensuing chaos. In the aftermath of the riots, the Indian government reported 20,000 had fled the city, however the People's Union for Civil Liberties reported "at least" 1,000 displaced persons. The most affected regions were the Sikh neighbourhoods in Delhi. The Central Bureau of Investigation, the main Indian investigating agency, is of the opinion that the acts of violence were organized with the support from the then Delhi police officials and the central government headed by Indira Gandhi's son, Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister after his mother's death and, when asked about the riots, said "when a big tree falls, the earth shakes" thus trying to justify the communal strife.

There are allegations that the government destroyed evidence and shielded the guilty. The Asian Age front-page story called the government actions "the Mother of all Cover-ups" There are allegations that the violence was led and often perpetrated by Indian National Congress activists and sympathisers during the riots. The chief weapon used by the mobs, kerosene, was supplied by a group of Indian National Congress Party leaders who owned filling stations.

Ethnic

Ethnic persecution refers to perceived persecution based on ethnicity. Its meaning is parallel to that of racism, (based on race). The Rwandan genocide remains an atrocity that the indigenous Hutu and Tutsi peoples still believe is unforgivable. The Japanese occupation of China caused the death of millions of people, mostly peasants who were murdered after the Doolittle Raid in early-World War II.

Germans

The persecution of ethnic Germans refers to systematic activity against groups of ethnic Germans based on their ethnicity.

Historically, this has been due to two causes: the German population was considered, whether factually or not, linked with German nationalist regimes such as those of the Nazis or Kaiser Wilhelm. This was the case in the World War I era persecution of Germans in the United States, and also in Eastern and Central Europe following the end of World War II. While many victims of these persecutions did not, in fact, have any connection to those regimes, cooperation between German minority organisations and Nazi regime did occur, as the example of Selbstschutz shows, which is still used as a pretense of hostilities against those who did not take part in such organisations. After World War II, many such Volksdeutsche were killed or driven from their homes in acts of vengeance, others in ethnic cleansing of territories prior to populating them with citizens of the annexing country. In other cases (e.g. in the case of the formerly large German-speaking populations of Russia, Estonia, or the Transylvanian (Siebenbürgen) German minority in Rumania and the Balkans) such persecution was a crime committed against innocent communities who had played no part in the Third Reich.

Hazara people

The Hazara people of central Afghanistan have been persecuted by Afghan rulers at various times in the history. Since the tragedy of 9/11, Sunni Muslim terrorists have been attacking the Hazara community in southwestern Pakistani town of Quetta, home to some 50,0000 Hazara who fled persecution in neighbouring Afghanistan. Some 2,400 men, women and children have been killed or wounded with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claiming responsibility for most of the attacks against the community. Consequently, many thousands have fled the country seeking asylum in Australia.

Roma

Antiziganism is hostility, prejudice, discrimination or racism directed against the Romani people as an ethnic group, or people who are perceived as being of Romani heritage.

The Porajmos was the planned and attempted effort, often described as a genocide, during World War II by the government of Nazi Germany and its allies to exterminate the Romani (Gypsy) people of Europe. Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, a supplementary decree to the Nuremberg Laws was issued on 26 November 1935, defining Gypsies as "enemies of the race-based state", the same category as Jews. Thus, the fate of Roma in Europe in some ways paralleled that of the Jews. Historians estimate that 220,000 to 500,000 Romani were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators, or more than 25% of the slightly less than 1 million Roma in Europe at the time. Ian Hancock puts the death toll as high as 1.5 million.

Rohingyas

The UN human rights chief slammed Myanmar's apparent "systematic attack" on the Rohingya minority, warning that "ethnic cleansing" seemed to be underway. Ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing security forces in Myanmar’s Rakhine State have described killings, shelling, and arson in their villages that have all the hallmarks of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing,” Human Rights Watch said. “Rohingya refugees have harrowing accounts of fleeing Burmese army attacks and watching their villages be destroyed,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “Lawful operations against armed groups do not involve burning the local population out of their homes.” 

Based on genetics

People with albinism

Persecution on the basis of albinism is frequently based on the belief that albinos are inferior to persons with higher concentration of melanin in their skin. As a result, albinos have been persecuted, killed and dismembered, and graves of albinistic people dug up and desecrated. Such people have also been ostracized and even killed because they are presumed to bring bad luck in some areas. Haiti also has a long history of treating albinistic people as accursed, with the highest incidence under the influence of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier.

Of people with autism

People with autism spectrum disorders have commonly been victims of persecution, both throughout history and in the present era. In Cameroon children with autism are commonly accused of witchcraft and singled out for torture and even death.

Additionally, it is speculated that many of the disabled children murdered during Action T4 in Nazi Germany may have been autistic, making autistic people among the first victims of The Holocaust.

LGBT

A number of countries, especially those in the Western world, have passed measures to alleviate discrimination against sexual minorities, including laws against anti-gay hate crimes and workplace discrimination. Some have also legalized same-sex marriage or civil unions in order to grant same-sex couples the same protections and benefits as opposite-sex couples. In 2011, the United Nations passed its first resolution recognizing LGBT rights and, in 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in all states of the United States.

Based on military service

Persecution on the basis of army service (or the lack of it) operates in Israeli society. In the State of Israel, Jewish citizens who receive an exemption from service in the Israel Defense Forces cannot take up many prestigious career options, especially in the field of security. The root of discrimination on the basis of army service lies in the practice that at age 17, non-Arab citizens (including Druze) are called up to be examined for eligibility to compulsory military service. A record for each potential conscript is made. Those who actually serve in the military are distinguished from those rejected from service by a Discharge Card, which has additional information on it, including the soldier's rank, military profession, and behavior during army service. Potential employers show a particular interest in Discharge Cards, since they constitute a universally available source of information about a potential employee. Employers frequently look down upon citizens rejected from the army, typically believing that "those who are unfit for army service are also unfit for the work environment", and that those who succeeded in the army are also likely to become good employees. Job advertisements in Israel very frequently specify a requirement of "Full Army Service", thus the decisions taken by the draft board regarding a 17-year-old minor may affect entire careers.

In fiction, Robert A. Heinlein depicts a society where suffrage rights depend on military service in his 1959 novel Starship Troopers.

Sin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In a religious context, sin is the act of transgression against divine law. Sin can also be viewed as any thought or action that endangers the ideal relationship between an individual and God; or as any diversion from the perceived ideal order for human living. In Jainism, sin refers to anything that harms the possibility of the jiva (being) to attain moksha (supreme emancipation). In Islamic ethics, Muslims see sin as anything that goes against the commands of Allah (God). Judaism regards the violation of any of the 613 commandments as a sin.

Etymology

The word derives from "Old English syn(n), for original *sunjō. The stem may be related to that of Latin 'sons, sont-is' guilty. In Old English there are examples of the original general sense, ‘offence, wrong-doing, misdeed'". The English Biblical terms translated as "sin" or "syn" from the Biblical Greek and Jewish terms sometimes originate from words in the latter languages denoting the act or state of missing the mark; the original sense of New Testament Greek ἁμαρτία hamartia "sin", is failure, being in error, missing the mark, especially in spear throwing; Hebrew hata "sin" originates in archery and literally refers to missing the "gold" at the centre of a target, but hitting the target, i.e. error. "To sin" has been defined from a Greek concordance as "to miss the mark".

Religions

Bahá'í

In the Bahá'í Faith, humans are considered naturally good (perfect), fundamentally spiritual beings. Human beings were created because of God's immeasurable love. However, the Bahá'í teachings compare the human heart to a mirror, which, if turned away from the light of the sun (i.e. God), is incapable of receiving God's love.

Buddhism

Buddhism believes in the principle of karma, whereby suffering is the inevitable consequence of greed, anger, and delusion (known as the Three poisons). While there is no direct Buddhist equivalent of the Abrahamic concept of sin, wrongdoing is recognized in Buddhism. The concept of Buddhist ethics is consequentialist in nature and is not based upon duty towards any deity. Karma means action, and in Buddhist context, motivation is the most important aspect of an action. Whether karma done with mind, body and/or speech is called 'good' or 'bad', depends on whether it would bring pleasant or unpleasant results to the person who does the action. One needs to purify negative karma Four Satipatthanas to free oneself from obstacles to liberation from the vicious circle of rebirth. The purification reduces suffering and in the end one reaches Nirvana, the ultimate purification by realizing selflessness or emptiness. An enlightened being is free of all the suffering and karmas, and will not be automatically born again.

Christianity

A Sistine Chapel fresco depicts the expulsion of Adam and Eve for transgressing God's command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

In the Old Testament, some sins were punishable by death in different forms, while most sins are forgiven by burnt offerings. Christians consider the Old Covenant to be fulfilled by the Gospel.
In the New Testament the forgiveness of sin is effected through faith and repentance (Mark 1:15). Sin is forgiven when the sinner acknowledges, confesses, and repents for their sin as a part of believing in Jesus Christ. The sinner is expected to confess his sins to God as a part of an ongoing relationship, which also includes giving thanks to God. The sinful person has never before been in a favorable relationship with God. When, as a part of the process of salvation, a person is forgiven, they enter into a union with God which abides forever. In the Epistle to the Romans 6:23, it is mentioned that "the wages of sin is death", which is commonly interpreted as, if one repents for his sins, such person will inherit salvation.

In Jewish Christianity, sin is believed to alienate the sinner from God even though He has extreme love for mankind. It has damaged and completely severed the relationship of humanity to God. That relationship can only be restored through acceptance of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross as a satisfactory sacrifice for the sins of humanity. Humanity was destined for life with God when Adam disobeyed God. The Bible in John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting."

In Eastern Christianity, sin is viewed in terms of its effects on relationships, both among people and likewise between people and God. Also as in Jewish Christianity, Sin is likewise seen as the refusal to follow God's plan and the desire to be "like God" (as stated in Genesis 3:5) and thus in direct opposition to God's will (see the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis).

Original sin is a Western concept that states that sin entered the human world through Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden and that human beings have since lived with the consequences of this first sin.

The serpent who beguiled Eve to eat of the fruit was punished by having it and its kind being made to crawl on the ground and God set an enmity between them and Eve's descendants (Genesis 3:14-15). Eve was punished by the pains of childbirth and the sorrow of bringing about life that would eventually age, sicken and die (Genesis 3:16). The second part of the curse about being subordinate to Adam originates from her creation from one of Adam's ribs to be his helper (Genesis 2:18-25); the curse now clarifies that she must now obey her husband and desire only him. Adam was punished by having to work endlessly to feed himself and his family. The land would bring forth both thistles and thorns to be cleared and herbs and grain to be planted, nurtured, and harvested. The second part of the curse about his mortality is from his origin as red clay - he is from the land and he and his descendants would return to it when buried after death. When Adam's son Cain slew his brother Abel, he introduced murder into the world (Genesis 4:8-10). For his punishment, God banished him as a fugitive, but first marked him with a sign that would protect him and his descendants from harm (Genesis 4:11-16).

One concept of sin deals with things that exist on Earth, but not in Heaven. Food, for example, while a necessary good for the (health of the temporal) body, is not of (eternal) transcendental living and therefore its excessive savoring is considered a sin. The unforgivable sin (or eternal sin) is a sin that can never be forgiven; Matthew 12:30-32 : " ³⁰ He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. ³¹ And Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. ³² And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."

In Catholic Christianity sins are classified into grave sins called mortal sins and less serious sins called venial sin. Mortal sins cause one to lose salvation unless the sinner repents and venial sins require some sort of penance either on Earth or in Purgatory.

Jesus was said to have paid for the complete mass of sins past, present, and to come in future. Even inevitable sin is said to have already been cleansed.

The Lamb of God was and is God himself and is therefore sinless. In the Old Testament, Leviticus 16:21 states that ‘the laying on of hands’ was the action that the High Priest Aaron was ordered to do yearly by God to take sins of Israel's nation onto a spotless young lamb.

Hinduism

In Hinduism, the term sin (pāpa in Sanskrit) is often used to describe actions that create negative Karma by violating moral and ethical codes, which automatically brings negative consequences. This is somewhat similar to Abrahamic sin in the sense that pāpa is considered a crime against the laws of God, which is known as (1) Dharma, or moral order, and (2) one's own self, but another term aparadha is used for grave offences. The term papa cannot be taken however, in literal sense as that of a sin. This is because there is no consensus regarding the nature of ultimate reality or God in Hinduism. Only, the vedanta school being unambiguously theistic, whereas no anthropomorphic God exists in the rest five schools namely Samkhya, Nyaya Yoga, Vaishashikha, and Purva-Mimansa . The term papa however in the strictest sense refers to actions which bring about wrong/unfavourable consequences, not relating to a specific divine will in the absolute sense. To conclude, considering a lack of consensus regarding the nature of ultimate reality in Hinduism, it can be considered that papa has lesser insistence on God for it be translated as Sin, and that there is no exact equivalent to Sin in Hinduism.

Islam

In Islamic ethics, Muslims see sin as anything that goes against the commands of Allah (God), a breach of the laws and norms laid down by religion. Islamic terms for sin include dhanb and khaṭīʾa, which are synonymous and refer to intentional sins; khiṭʾ, which means simply a sin; and ithm, which is used for grave sins.

Jainism

In Jainism, the word for sin is the Sanskrit word पाप (paap), which is the antithesis of पुण्य (punya) meaning merit. A jiva (a being) acquires sin based on its karma, if it hurts anyone, causes someone to hurt anyone, or commends hurting anyone by thought, speech or action. Anyone, here, refers to literally any living organism, but not limited to human beings.

No jiva can achieve moksha (ultimate emancipation) without ceasing to accumulate karma and shedding off the already accumulated karma entirely. A jiva accumulates karma if it resorts to violence, non-chastity, falsehood, stealing, and possessiveness. A jiva ceases to accumulate karma if he resorts to the golden trio of samyak gyan (right knowledge), samyak darshan (right sight) and samyak charitra (right character). A jiva begins to shed off the accumulated karma by resorting to penance, repentance, vows and by exterminating foes of lust, anger, attachment, aversion, ignorance and fallacy.

If a jiva does not give up sin, his karma will keep accumulating and no sin can be absolved without getting its fruit or repenting for it. Thus such a jiva is bound to remain in the worldly cycle of constant reincarnation, wherein it will keep taking rebirths, into any of the four broad types of living organisms, depending on the magnitude and nature of karma accumulated in previous birth(s). The four types are dev (beings of heaven, including deities), manushya (human), tiryanch (plants, animals, insects, etc.) and naarki (beings of hell).

During this cycle of getting born and dying for infinity, the jiva will have to then live the life of the organism he is and while living it, the jiva will again perform more karma. This will again lead to rebirth and again performing more karma. Thus, the cycle continues.

It is important to note that Jains believe that for complete liberation, not only the "sinful karma" but even the "meritorious karma" needs to be shed off. This means that a jiva can truly attain moksha, only if the soul is completely and absolutely pure and devoid of any accumulation. For instance, sins may cause the jiva to be reborn, inter alia, in hell and merits may cause it to be reborn in heaven. But heaven, like hell is a part of worldly cycle of reincarnation and not supreme moksha of the soul. Thus, if a person hypothetically keeps performing only and exclusively good deeds in his life, he may still not attain moksha, because he has not yet shed off previously accumulated sins through repentance and knowledge.

Jains believe that only a human jiva has the capacity and the will to attain moksha. Hence the jiva should use this extremely rare opportunity of being born as a human to walk on the path that brings him closer to moksha. In fact, Jains take the concept of avoiding sin so seriously that not only are they completely vegetarian but some devout Jains also abstain from eating underground grown food like potatoes, onions, etc. to avoid killing small organisms. Most of the Jains are also nonalcoholics and eat before sunset each day.

Judaism

Mainstream Judaism regards the violation of any of the 613 commandments of the Mosaic law for Jews, or the seven Noahide laws for Gentiles as a sin. Judaism teaches that all humans are inclined to sin from birth. Sin has many classifications and degrees. Some sins are punishable with death by the court, others with death by heaven, others with lashes, and others without such punishment, but no sins with willful intent go without consequence. Unwillful violations of the mitzvot (without negligence) do not count as sins. "Sins by error" are considered as less severe sins. When the Temple yet stood in Jerusalem, people would offer sacrifices for their misdeeds. The atoning aspect of korbanot is carefully circumscribed. For the most part, korbanot only expiate such "sins by error", that is, sins committed because a person forgot or did not know that this thing was a sin. In some circumstances, lack of knowledge is considered close to deliberate intent. No atonement is needed for violations committed under duress, and for the most part, korbanot cannot atone for a deliberate sin. In addition, korbanot have no expiating effect unless the person making the offering sincerely repents his or her actions before making the offering, and makes restitution to any person who suffered harm through the violation.

Judaism teaches that all willful sin has consequences. The completely righteous suffer for their sins (by humiliation, poverty, and suffering that God sends them) in this world and receive their reward in the world to come. The in-between (not completely righteous or completely wicked), suffer for and repent their sins after death and thereafter join the righteous. The very evil do not repent even at the gates of hell. Such people prosper in this world to receive their reward for any good deed, but cannot be cleansed by and hence cannot leave gehinnom, because they do not or cannot repent. This world can therefore seem unjust where the righteous suffer, while the wicked prosper. Many great thinkers have contemplated this.

Mesopotamian tradition

In Mesopotamian mythology, Adamu (or Addamu/Admu, or Adapa) goes on trial for the "sin of casting down a divinity". His crime is breaking the wings of the south wind.

Shinto

Evil deeds fall into two categories in Shinto: amatsu tsumi, "the most pernicious crimes of all", and kunitsu tsumi, "more commonly called misdemeanors".