The survey was carried out on a sample of 1,000 people by IPSOS agency last December and was presented by the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman.
Discrimination was most frequently related to work and employment, and healthcare. However, as many as 68% of those discriminated against did not seek assistance, mostly because they thought that the situation would not have changed or would have even got worse.
Two-thirds of those claiming to have been discriminated against did nothing -- 45% of them said that nothing would have changed, 18% thought that the situation would have only got worse, 14.9% said there was no need for it and 12.9% said they did not know who to talk to.
As many as 17.9% of respondents did not know what discrimination was, nearly 40% said discrimination was the biggest or one of the biggest problems in society, while less than 4% considered it completely irrelevant.
Although many people did not support views that reflected prejudices, they were still present and were mostly directed at Roma, trade unions, young people, elderly, asylum seekers and people with mental disorders. On the other hand, people with lower education qualifications and those with disabilities were least targeted.
Nearly half of the respondents (48%) said that Roma lived on welfare and did not want to work, 28% said they were confident that Roma would deter clients in the services sector, 33% said it would not be good to hire asylum seekers, 38% said that trade unions only caused trouble, while 28.7% said that the government discriminated the most.
Ombudswoman Lora Vidovic said that last year the number of discrimination complaints exceeded the number of other complaints for the first time, adding that her office received more than one complaint daily on average.
She expressed particular concern over the fact that people were not reporting discrimination and that many of them were not even aware of being discriminated against.