Bosnia and Herzegovina: LGBTI people well educated but still shut out of fair work, study finds

The Sarajevo Open Centre (SOC), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s leading LGBTI and women’s rights organisation, has published “Life Despite Discrimination”, a study of the socio-economic position of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people in the country. It covers education, employment, labour rights, finances, housing and quality of life, and partly compares the results with a similar SOC study from 2020.

The research was carried out in 2026 among 121 LGBTI people from five regions (Banja Luka, Mostar, Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica) and a representative sample of 1,000 adults from the general population. The author is sociologist Zlatiborka Popov-Momčinović. Because the LGBTI respondents were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling, and are mostly young, urban and highly educated, the authors stress that the findings cannot be generalised to the whole community.

Rights on paper, insecurity in practice

The central finding is a gap between rights guaranteed by law and everyday experience. A relatively good education does not by itself protect LGBTI people from discrimination and insecurity.

Some 63.6% of LGBTI respondents see the labour market in Bosnia and Herzegovina as completely or largely inaccessible to LGBTI people. Half (50.5%) have combined registered and unregistered work, and they are more likely than the general population to work freelance, short-term or part-time.

At work, 42% have faced jokes about their identity or appearance, 40% comments about their appearance, 21% social isolation, 18% inappropriate touching and 17% threats or intimidation. At the same time, 39% reported none of these experiences, suggesting that some workplaces do offer acceptance and safety.

Trust in the institutions meant to protect labour rights is low: 67% of LGBTI respondents have no confidence in them and only 11% do. NGOs and free legal aid services are trusted more. Respondents know more about their rights than in 2020, but incidents are still only rarely reported.

School and public attitudes

Most respondents felt they had equal or largely equal access to education, yet nearly half had at some point considered dropping out, citing money, lack of support, discrimination or violence. Almost 63% said they had experienced violence in educational institutions, and LGBTI topics are largely absent from curricula or presented in stereotypical ways.

Attitudes in the wider population show how much remains to be done: 15.5% categorically reject working with LGBTI people, 40.1% would not work for an LGBTI supervisor and 43.2% would not work for an employer that promotes LGBTI rights. Only 40.4% think schools should teach children to accept diverse sexual and gender identities, down from 60% in 2020. People who personally know LGBTI people tend to hold more positive views.

SOC recommends consistent enforcement of anti-discrimination law, stronger institutional protection, inclusive employer policies and ongoing training for teachers, managers and HR staff, with particular attention to the needs of trans people. The research is part of “Working Safe”, a regional programme run by ERA, the LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey, and funded by the European Union.

Source: soc.ba. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.