European Initiatives for the Support and Counselling of Victims of Hate Crimes: Key Actors

Background

This article refers to the SHELTER project, a European initiative implemented between 2018 and 2021. The Directorate-General of Justice of the European Commission funded this project within the Rights, Equality and Citizenship program (2014/2020). The project “Support and advice through the health system for hate crime victims”, or SHELTER by its acronym, lasted 25 months and was implemented in 4 European countries: Cyprus, Hungary, Malta and Spain, by a consortium conformed of different universities and non-governmental organisations (NGO's). It drew on previous initiatives already developed by the consortium of participating organisations, expanding the scope and impact of their previous actions, generating new synergies between the partners and giving rise to new lessons learned. SHELTER project delved into the important European problem of hate crimes, incorporating new social agents to prevent them and protect their victims. The legal and theoretical framework in which the project was conceived is described below (Díaz et. al., 2020).

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE – ODHIR) defined hate crimes as crimes' motivated by bias or prejudice towards a group of people' (OSCE-ODHIR, 2009). The OSCE recognised such intolerance manifestations as one of the most prevalent manifestations in Europe today (OSCE-ODHIR, 2009). The European Network Against Racism (ENAR) 2013-2014 Shadow Report on Hate Crime found that this phenomenon was on the rise and still remains dangerously present in today's Europe. Such is the case that the European Parliament seeks to expand the list of European crimes, including hate crimes and hate speech in said list, incorporating them into those already existing in Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (Díaz, 2018).

As mentioned above, the phenomenon of hate, either in its discursive aspect (hate speech) or in its broader facet (that which includes physical attacks, threats, graffiti, and vandalism, among others), originates from two key aspects such as stereotypes and prejudices, which end up giving rise to discriminatory acts and in its most extreme radicalisation to the commission of the hate above crimes.

Stereotypes make up simplified and rigid images, beliefs, and/or ideas regarding a person, group of people, or a set of things. The creation of these simple images about reality is part of the natural cognitive processes of human beings and fulfils important functions insofar as they have a functional and adaptive value by facilitating the understanding of the world in a simplified, orderly, coherent way, as well as, they make possible the prediction of events, the adjustment of the individual to social norms and contribute to the categorisation of the reality in which they live through the economy of thought. It is worth noting the identity value stereotypes have for the individual by pointing out the characteristics of otherness compared to those that the person perceives that describe and designate him. In this sense, stereotypes vary from positive, negative or neutral, depending on the qualities assigned to those static images configured in consciousness. Moreover, they are usually learned, transmitted and shared socially and culturally (Fernández-Poncela, 2011).

For its part, prejudice is an axiomatic predisposition to accept or reject people because of their social characteristics, whether real or imagined” (Light et al., 1991). It can also be defined as “a hostile and distrustful attitude towards someone who belongs to a group, simply because they belong to it” (Gordon & Allport, 1954). In this sense, prejudice is a learned attitude based on the experiences the person has had throughout his life, especially during his childhood. Prejudices are configured based on stereotypes. In the end, prejudice is a distorted way of interpreting reality since, although it may have a real basis, it contains erroneous, exaggerated information or accidental generalisations caused by a previous experience or someone else's. Prejudice is not just a statement of opinion or belief but an attitude that includes feelings such as contempt, disgust, or outright rejection.