Disfigurement campaign is launched

A Face Equality at Work campaign, addressing the discrimination in the labour market met by people with facial disfigurements, has been launched by Changing Faces (CF), the charity which represents people with disfigurements of the face or body.

CF works with employers to help them ensure all employees and customers with facial and other disfigurements are treated fairly. It is asking employers to sign a “Commitment to Face Equality” and to implement policies on the fair treatment of people with facial disfigurements in recruitment and retention procedures, and in customer service strategies.

The charity points out that more than 540,000 people in the UK have a significant disfigurement to their face, whether from birth or through an accident, skin conditions, facial paralysis or cancer surgery. And it says that despite the fact that people with disfigurements have legal protections under the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, nine out of 10 say they have suffered prejudice.

CF wants employers to adopt three goals in showing support for equality — becoming familiar with the causes and effects of disfiguring conditions; adopting positive thinking about people with disfigurements through ensuring an inclusive workplace culture; and altering behaviour “so that people with disfigurements are recruited, retained and served, equally and fairly”.

Barclays recently became the first employer to sign up to the campaign which was launched at the bank’s Canary Wharf headquarters in London.