Bringing together NGOs
and Security forces to tackle
hate crime and on-line hate speech against LGBT persons.
Funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC)
Programme of the European Union.

About

As reported by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE-ODIHR) in 2012, only 10 countries collect and report information on hate crime against lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans persons (LGBT).

Of these, only 8 are European Union countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland and United Kingdom). On the other hand NGOs from 21 EU countries have submitted data on hate crime against LGBT persons to the OSCE-ODIHR on that same year. According to those results, “[r]eports from NGOs to ODIHR suggest that a mistrust of authorities, as well as unwillingness or fear to reveal one’s own sexual orientation or gender identity contributes to significant under-reporting of hate crimes targeting this group.”

Also in 2012, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) conducted a survey on discrimination and victimisation of LGBT persons with an overwhelming participation of 93,079 respondents from the European Union, including Croatia.

This is to date the largest survey ever done to the LGBT community and it shows that between 2007 and 2012, 26% of the respondents had been attacked or threatened with violence at home or elsewhere – 35%in the case of the transgender respondents.

The survey also shows that many cases of bias motivated discrimination and violence were simply because the victims had been perceived as being LGBT. “Almost half of respondents who had not reported to the police the most serious incident of violence (43 %) or harassment (37 %) that had happened to them in the last five years because of being LGBT said that this was because they felt that the police would not do anything about their case. Almost one third (29 %) of those who did not report the most serious incident of violence which happened in the last five years because they were LGBT feared a homophobic or transphobic reaction from the police.”

This project’s target groups are:

  • LGBT NGOs and public authorities, including security forces and prosecutors – in order to build basis for a constant work network and interaction at the national and European level;
  • LGBT victims and witnesses of homophobic and transphobic hate crime and on-line hate speech – by sharing with them information on the cooperation among the previous target group, via the campaign, and by providing them with a reporting mechanism which immediately activates the national LGBT organisation and possibly the national security force.

The project was launched in November 2015 and it will end in November 2017.

European partners:

  • Belgium
  • Estonia
  • Hungary
  • Ireland
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Malta
  • Portugal
  • Spain
  • United Kingdom

This project has the following main objectives:

1
To comply with the suggested practices of Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA, of January 2014, in particular the exchange of information and good practices between various stakeholders and the importance of having a uniform reliable, comparable and systematic data collection mechanism on hate speech and hate crime in order to allow for cross-country comparisons and thus an effective implementation of the Framework Decision.
2
To conduct in-depth interview processes with representatives from security forces, the judiciary, victim support services and victims themselves in each participating country in order access the needs and difficulties in reporting LGBT-related hate crime and on-line hate speech.
3
To create networking environment between all partners (LGBT NGOs and Equality Bodies, Ombudsman Offices, Police Colleges, Prosecutors Offices and EU Agencies).
4
To create an uniform reporting mechanism available in the participating countries’ national languages and available on-line and via a mobile app.
5
To empower LGBT victims of hate crime and on-line hate speech by involving all the before-mentioned stakeholders in a national campaign which encourages victims to report, showing that security forces are on the victims’ side and against violence and discrimination thus contributing to a trust-building relationship.

Organisations

  • Portugal

    Marta Ramos &
    Paulo Côrte-Real
    Project Coordinators

    Gonçalo Aguiar
    Project Officer

    Ivnna Jahate
    Financial Officer

    Project Coordinator

    Associação ILGA Portugal is Portugal's largest and oldest LGBT organisation. It works both on the advocacy level, influencing decision-makers, and on the community level by organising events, providing services to the community and managing the only LGBT Centre in the country. ILGA Portugal has been working on hate crimes and hate speech since 2010, partnering projects in this area and conducting awareness-raising and training sessions for relevant stakeholders, including Portuguese and European (via CEPOL) security forces. In 2012 ILGA Portugal created the Observatory on Discrimination, which every year collects data on hate crimes and discriminatory incidents committed in Portugal against LGBT people and/or people perceived to be LGBT.

  • Belgium

    Kenneth Mills
    Policy officer

    Çavaria is the Flemish LGBT umbrella organisation with more than 130 member associations. We have been involved in public policies to combat LGBT related hate crime and hate speech. We train liaison officers and inform victims about their rights.

  • Estonia

    Kelly Grossthal
    Equal Treatment Expert

    Egert Rünne
    Researcher

    Estonian Human Rights Centre is an independent non-governmental human rights advocacy organisation. For years, EHRC has been advocating for the better hate-speech legislation in Estonia and adding homophobia and transphobia as an aggravating factor for criminal offences. In addition, EHRC has carried out several studies that include LGBT and hate crime issues, among others compliance documentation report on Estonia “Implementation of the Council of Europe Recommendation to member states on measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity (Rec(2010)5)”.

  • Hungary

    Bea Sándor
    Project coordinator

    József Kárpáti
    Legal expert

    Háttér Society, founded in 1995, is the largest LGBTQI NGO in Hungary. It operates an information and counselling hotline, an in person counselling service, a legal aid service, an HIV/AIDS prevention program and an archive documenting the history of the LGBTQI movement in Hungary. Besides its core activities Háttér regularly participates in research and training projects and is actively involved in lobbying for advancing the rights of LGBTQI people through legal change. Háttér is an active member of the Hungarian NGO coalition Working Group Against Hate Crimes.

  • Ireland

    Eimear O’Reilly
    Workplace Diversity Officer GLEN

    GLEN is a Policy and Strategy focused NGO which aims to deliver ambitious and positive change for lesbian, gay and bisexual people (LGB) in Ireland, ensuring full equality, inclusion and protection from all forms of discrimination. One of GLEN’s focuses is policing and community safety. Everyone, including LGBT people, have the right to live safely, without fear and to participate fully in all aspects of life. Being attacked or harassed is an awful thing to happen to anyone, but being attacked or harassed because of who you are is even more difficult and leaves you feeling very vulnerable. These types of attacks are unacceptable. GLEN work closely with the Gardaí and other organisations to ensure that LGBT people feel safe within their community.

  • Latvia

    Kaspars Zalitis
    Project Director

    Association of LGBT and their friends MOZAIKA is the national LGBT organisation with a focus on advocacy for LGBT human rights and community building. Work with combatting hate crime and hate speech is among the priorities of MOZAIKA. The organisation is doing research, advocacy work, training police force, giving support and assistance to victims of hate crime and doing awareness raising work in the Latvian LGBT community on reporting crime. MOZAIKA is in close cooperation with State Police College and are trusted partners in dealing with hate crime.

  • Lithuania

    Vladimir Simonko
    Executive Director

    Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius
    Policy Coordinator (Human Rights)

    The National LGBT* Rights Organization LGL is the sole civil society organization in Lithuania, exclusively working in the field of LGBT* human rights. With the view of combating the negative phenomenon of anti-LGBT* hate crimes and hate speech, the organization seeks to enhance the capacities of the national stakeholders through the targeted trainings, public consultations and advocacy work. It also provides legal and financial support for the victims of anti-LGBT* hate crimes. Finally, the association LGL encourages the members of the local LGBT* community to report the experienced instances of hate speech and hate crimes to the competent national authorities through the targeted awareness raising measures.

  • Malta

    Gabi Calleja
    Coordinator

    Colette Farrugia Bennett
    Social Worker Rainbow Support Service

    Neil Falzon
    Legal Advisor

    MGRM strives to achieve full equality for LGBTIQ people in Maltese society, a society that enables people to live openly and fully without fear of discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics. It does this through advocacy, awareness raising, service provision and community building. One of MGRM's current projects involves addressing hate speech and hate crime looking into incidence, reporting mechanisms, support to victims and networking with stakeholders such as the security forces, support service providers, judiciary, human rights bodies and organisations and the LGBTIQ community.

  • Spain

    Jenifer Rebollo
    General Manager

    Alberto Martin-Pérez
    Community Research and Training Unit

    The Spanish Federation of LGBT organizations (FELGTB) is engaged in fighting hate crimes, providing support and legal advice to LGBT victims, and raising awareness of LGBT issues within society, the LGBT community, and the Administration. FELGTB organizes trainings for law enforcement bodies and other audiences and releases an annual report on hate crimes against LGBT people in Spain. FELGTB coordinated the EEA Grants-funded project “Networks against hatred”, which was chosen as best practice by FRA for its successful coordination of different stakeholders and for the campaign “Say It Out Loud” www.conlavozbienalta.org

  • United Kingdom

    Nick Antjoule
    Hate Crime Manager

    Nik Noone
    Chief Executive

    Melanie Stray
    Community Engagement Manager

    Galop is an LGBT anti-violence project in the UK. It provides specialist support, advice and direct assistance to people facing hate crime, domestic abuse and sexual violence. It also aims to improve the response of agencies to hate crime through training, research, lobbying and campaigning. It’s work is independent and community-led.

Contact

Contact us for further information.