A hate crime is a criminal offense committed against a person or property, motivated by the offender’s bias against victims’ ethnic/national origin, skin colour, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. These incidents are increasing phenomena in Europe, for their diffusion and for their unique impact on victims and communities.
The project Stand Up for Victims’ Rights – Fostering rights of the victims of hate crimes through support and ‘civil courage‘ aims to contribute to the application of Directive 2012/29/EU in order to improve the system of support for the victims of hate crimes, to promote victims’ rights and to combat the underreporting.
The project is managed from September 2020 to August 2022, through a transnational partnership, in 3 countries (Austria, Croatia, Italy) including 3 civil society organisations, 3 support services for victims and an international organisation. This choice is made to enhance the local relevance of the activities, to improve effectiveness at transnational level and to strengthen the sustainability and replicability of the project in other European countries.
Partners
- Cospe (IT), Zara (AT) and Human Rights House (HR) are NGOs working on the struggle against racism and discriminations through support, advocacy and educational activities.
- Weisser Ring (AT), Victim and witness support service (HR) and Aleteia (IT) are victims’ support services, which networking will improve national and transnational efficiency of referral system for victims.
- Amnesty international will activate stakeholders in the promotion of human rights and will support people to claim their rights through education and training.
Activities
The activities are divided in Work Packages (WP)
- WP2 – Cooperation and networking – Activities provide the creation of CSOs’ national working groups, which networking will be enhanced through national and transnational meetings. In this phase, an effective referral system is created or reinforced thanks to the networking and through the production of assistance and recording tools, tested during the year in 4 cities (Florence, Vienna, Rome and Zagreb).
- WP3 – Capacity buildings for professionals and sentinels – The creation of victims’ support shared curricula, thorugh a Training of Trainers at European level, and the implementation of capacity building activities will strength the capacity of key professionals to understand and address victims’ needs, promoting a victim-centred approach
- WP4 – Information and awareness raising campaign – A social media and media campaign will be designed and launched to raise awarenes about hate crimes, strengthen and promote “civil courage”. It will be accompained by community events and a final conference in Rome, organized by Amnesty International, to promote civil courage of possible bystanders and the entire community. The advocacy campaign will end with the design of a policy brief, containing a common European part and national sections. It will be addressed to policy and decision makers and presented in Bruxelles during the advocacy meeting. The document will include an overview on hate incidents’ problems and suggestions on how to solve them.
Results
The project will result in:
- increase in access to support services by hate crime victims
- increased reporting of hate crimes
- increased response by the community
The expected impact is based on an increased capacity of CSOs and professionals to support hate crimes victims and to promote their rights, on the change of perspective of all beneficiaries (from a crime-centred to a victim-centred approach and from a rights-based to a needs-based approach) and the creation of a more supportive community. A higher number of accesses of hate crimes’ victims to support services and an increased number of reporting is expected as final impact.
