Italy is a country made up of 20 regions, each with its own traditions and history. The main differences, in terms of working conditions, job opportunities and the quality of public services (education, healthcare and transport), are between the northern and southern regions. The family is at the centre of the structure of society and of social welfare, with extended families still living together, in particular in the south. Organised crime, corruption, the black economy and tax evasion are structural scourges that still hinder the full development of the country, with the complicity of a political class that has never been able to tackle them adequately. Some relevant data on the Italian population are provided by Istat, the Istituto nazionale di statistica (Italian National Institute for Statistics). According to the only survey carried out on the topic, in a population of 58 983 122, there are about 3 100 000 persons with disabilities, representing about 5.2 % of the total population. Pupils with disability numbered 272 000, or 3 % of the total number of students. One million people identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual. There are 5 234 000 foreign nationals, but no data are available on the racial or ethnic origin of the population. With regard to religion, 74.6 % of the total population have been baptised into the Catholic Church, although only around 25 % declared themselves to be practising Catholics. Muslims represent around 2 % of the population; the same percentage as Orthodox Christians. The Jewish community has a historical presence in Italy and has about 35 000 members. The majority of judgments in the field of discrimination law are still based on the ground of nationality, although the application of anti-discrimination law on other grounds is increasing. However, discrimination law is hardly perceived as a specific sector of the law, and is ignored as such even in databases that are commonly used by judges and lawyers. Both on political platforms and in the social sciences, discrimination is still a low-priority issue. The weak role played by UNAR (Ufficio Nazionale Antidiscriminazioni Razziali), an office of the Government that is supposed to be the national equality body, is both a cause and an effect of this lack of awareness, at least among politicians.
