Today 22 February 2018, VSE members all around the Europe are organizing series of actions and events in recognition of #EuropeanDayForVictimsofCrime
Below you will find information on some of the events that are taking place in:
Belgium – Steunpunt Mens en Samenleving
In Flanders SAM, Steunpunt Mens en Samenleving organises a congress day on the 22nd. On the program are: Victim policy in Flanders, Cybercrime against children and how the police researches it, and psychotrauma and the brain. Project presentations will be held presenting: The Voice project on sexual violence in sports, Stop it now (helpline for people wit pedophilic feelings) and a European project regarding victims of corporate crimes. The congress will take place in De Factorij, Huart hamoirlaan in Schaarbeek (Brussels).
Croatia – White Circle
White Circle Croatia is organizing a round table on 19th February in Centre for social service in Split on subject Support of victims of crime in Dalmatia county where we will have speakers from Centre for social service, Department for victim support from Ministry of Justice, judge from County court, representative from Police and representative from Public Prosecution as speakers.
Also, they are attending Documenta’s conference on 22nd February as partners in project Rights, support, protection and compensation for victims of crime.
Austria – Weisser Ring
As every year, the Weisser Ring Austria organises, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, an event with lectures and presentations on 22nd of February.
This Year’s topic will be “civil courage” and there will be speakers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a social scientist from University Innsbruck; Head of the Police in Vienna’s 10th district; the initiator of #wetogether (against sexual harrassement and abuse of women in Austrian sports); as well as our executive director, Dr. Dina Nachbaur.
The public event will be held in the great lecture room of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Vienna.
Finland – Victim Support
They have published a press release on 15th February. In the press release they gave out their main statistical results from last year showing a big growth in the number of clients. The press release also included results showing that RIKU is more known among the public compared to research results from a year ago. It brings also up the theme for this year’s European Day of Victims of Crime in Finland which is “All wounds do not heal with plaster”. The theme comes from the campaign (see below). Link to the press release which is only in Finnish.
During the week their campaign videos will be shown on TV, on two channels of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE (we get this free of charge). The videos have been produced in Finnish and Swedish and both language versions will be shown on TV (the compilation version). The actual campaign was implemented during the two weeks after Christmas but they will use the materials during the year at different occasions. The campaign produced 4 different videos and a compilation of them and all these five versions were also translated to Swedish. One can find the different versions of the campaign videos on their YouTube page. Here is the compilation:
and links to other videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhleOvZP9Mo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rol9FYwixSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjWPSycivIg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Ph9rhCrAs
Two seminars are organised in the north of Finland:
On 20th February the Lapland region will organize a seminar in Rovaniemi on terrorism and the situation of victims of terrorism. The seminar is mainly targeted for professionals.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/rikosuhrip%C3%A4ivystys/terrorismi-ilmi%C3%B6n%C3%A4-ja-uhrin-asema-seminaari-rovaniemell%C3%A4-2022018/1883465885016557/
On 22nd February the Lapland region will organize a seminar in Kemi on domestic violence. The seminar is mainly targeted for professionals and students.
shttps://www.facebook.com/notes/rikosuhrip%C3%A4ivystys/l%C3%A4hi-ja-parisuhdev%C3%A4kivalta-seminaari-kemiss%C3%A4-2222018/1907095055986973/
Estonia – Victim Support
Estonian Victim Support is organising already traditional annual Conference at 22 of February to celebrate Victims Day. This year we are concentrating on families and the theme is “Family Violence Influence on Children”. Performers are local Social Support System workers, Police representatives about statistics, psychiatrist about support and helping victims of home violence and even a victim telling her story about recovering and support she had. Conference is hosting guests all over Estonia – social workers, local government officials, teachers, children protection agencies, etc. All together around 80 people. It´s becoming to be an interesting day.
Conference is with modest participation fee with what we are gathering our annual VSE members fee.
Latvia – Legal Aid Administration
Legal Aid Administration pays tribute to the cooperation and informs that on the European Victims` Day on February 22 will hold an expert discussion during which we will discuss the progress and further activities for the Victim`s Support Directive implementation.
Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Latvia, representatives of the Latvian law enforcement authorities, judges and NGO will participate in the discussion.
On that date, following our invitation, a phone campaign will be arranged to support victims,
i.e. in cooperation with lawyers 116006 vs help line – legal assistance hours,
and in cooperation with the State Inspectorate for Protection of Children`s Rights help line 116111 – information and support to child victims.
These activities to be held on February 22 have been initiated, inspired by the experience of other countries, including the Portuguese Association for Victim Support – APAV activities.
This year Latvia will celebrate its 100th anniversary and wants to be a step closer to the community of those EU member states which have more advanced victims` right protection policy.
Denmark – Offerraadgivningen i Danmark
On Victims’ Day, 22nd Febr, Offerraadgivningen i Danmark will hold a conference in Parliament on Support to Victims of Digital Violation, related to sharing photos, and Terror Attacks. The purpose is to share challenges and ways of how to jointly support victims of these two types of attacks, often connected with hate and revenge crime, though very different.
The Minister of Justice will open the conference, and among others the founder of Digital Responsibility, Miriam Michaelsen and Administrative Director, Levent Altan will present, as will John Turner, V-Europe, a Danish Victim and Eva Larsson, BrottofferJeuren, Sweden. Two panels, composed of MPs, Police, a Psychologist and a Lawyer will discuss further what shall be done and how to support victims.
Police, MPs, (mainly Rights spokespersons), Counsellors from local victim support organisations, board members, Partners and the Press/Media are all invited to the conference
OiD has just boosted their Facebook – Offerrådgivningen i Danmark – and prepared smaller videos on the conference themes. OiD has transcribed the VSE drawn-and-talk video from 2016 into Danish, and made links to the other VSE video on violence.
The Nordic partners will also attend the conference, and the day after, OID hosts the Nordic meeting in Copenhagen. The day before, Levent Altan together with Knut Arild, the OID vice-chairman and Else Marie Buck, will hold meetings with the Minister of Justice, the Digital Responsibility and the department in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, managing the Help Line and with whom OID collaborates.
OiD got funds for the conference and for increased use of the Facebook from the Danish Victim Foundation, which is based on funds from traffic offenses.
UK – Supporting Justice
Victims Choice provides information on victim services across the UK and identifies services available in a victims’ local area; we also have plans to branch out to support services across Europe ( https://victimschoice.org.uk/).
We hope by creating this platform we will give not only choice to Victims when it comes to the services that they use, it will also give them the opportunity to have a voice by being able to rate the service. With that in mind, we are regularly giving victims an opportunity to tell their story on our blog. Today, on the European Day of Victims of Crime we are sharing Kathy’s story, please read here https://victimschoice.org.uk/articles/view/15.
Scotland – Victims Support
Victim Support Scotland is hosting an event on European Day for Victims of Crime with a focus on LGBTI Hate Crime. The event is organised at the premisses of Victim Support Scotland and the speakers at the event will be: Kate Wallace, CEO Victim Support Scotland, Stephen Duffy, Terrence Higgins Trust, Hannah Pearson, Equality Network, Dr Peter Matthews, University of Stirling, Jordan Daly, Time for Inclusive Education (TIE), PC Susan Ross, Police Scotlandand the participants will also hear a personal story of LGBTI Hate Crime
Slachtofferhulp Nederland
Slachtofferhulp Nederland organises breakfast meetings in six cities on the European Day of Victims of Crime.
In The Hague, Rotterdam, Groningen, Zutphen and Maastricht we will meet at 08:00 with volunteers, paid staff and colleagues from other organisations.
These organisations include among others the police, public prosecution, lawyers, the Child Care and Protection Board and the Department of Justice and Safety.
Sander Dekker, the Dutch Minister for Legal Protection, will participate in the meeting in The Hague.
During the breakfast meeting there will be a discussion on a number of issues: What does a victim need? How can we – in the interest of victims – improve the cooperation between our organisations? How can we reach out to the victims who need our support? Part of the meeting will also be three rounds of speed dating, aimed at enlarging each participant’s network.
REPUBLIC OF CROATIA – MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, Service for Victim and Witness Support
In recognition of the European day for Victims of crime, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Croatia, Service for Victim and Witness Support is organizing the round table „NGO Network for Victim and Witness Support – challenges, goals and guidelines”.
The round table will be held on February 22, 2018 in the premises of the Ministry of Justice.
The aim of the round table is to discuss the challenges of establishing the network of civil society organizations for victim support as well as possible ways of cooperation with the state, public bodies and local and regional self-government through examples of good practice.
Speakers at the round table will be representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Administration, Municipal Court, the Croatian Institute of Public Health, the City of Zagreb and civil society organizations – members of the Network for Victim and Witness Support.
Representatives of other institutions and organizations, as well as practitioners who come into direct contact with victims in their work are all invited to participate at the round table, especially judges, representatives of the State Attorney’s Office, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Demographics, Family, Youth and Social Policy, the Ombudsperson, the Gender Equality Ombudsperson, the Disability Ombudsperson, the Ombudsperson for children, the Government Office for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities, the Government Office for Gender Equality, the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs, as well as representatives of the civil society organizations. In order to enable participation of all interested practitioners across the country, live streaming of the round table will also be available.
Czech Republic – Bílý Kruh Bezpečí
On Tuesday there was a press conference where the focus was on empowering victims of crime to use more of their rights. BKB will focus on the right to have a proxy and a trustee.
On the occasion of the European Day of Victims, BKB is awarding the BKB Award “Angel” for an extraordinary act in favor of the victims.
France Victimes
Some associations of France Victimes have organised events to commemorate the European Day of Victims of Crimes, in order to better inform their partners about their activities.
For instance, our association in Chaumont and Saint-Dizier, ADAJ 52, will be opening its doors to the public. Conferences and round tables are planned at Maison des associations in Chaumont and Maison de Justice et du Droit in Saint-Dizier to present the association and explain its missions. The public will also be able to ask questions about criminal Justice, and visit the courtroom. Professionals have been encouraged to participate as well, and talk about their own organisation.
Others are taking this opportunity to initiate innovative activities: France Victimes 88 Saint-Dié-Des-Vosges will be organising a self-defence training session performed by a specialised educator. The public will learn how to identify a dangerous situation and get to safety.
The association ADAVIM 36 in Châteauroux, together with a sociologist, has held for the occasion a conference about sports and physical, psychological and sexual violence, to raise awareness about abuses happening in the field of sports.
Also, the association AVL 45 in Orléans will publish for this day a collection of testimonies of victims they have supported in order to create a dialogue between the organisation and the victims, and tell about the support they have been receiving from the association.
The vast majority of our associations will publish press releases informing the public of the European Day of Victims and the activities of the associations to help supporting victims of crime.
France Victimes will hold a social medial campaign by creating two hashtags: #22FEV (French for 22 February) and #JEV (the French acronym for European Day of Victims of crime).
Ireland – Victim’s rights Alliance
Together with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), VRA called for the full implementation of the EU Victims’ Directive, including publication of guidelines for intermediaries and the creation of an Ombudsman for Victims. Full statement is available here
Serbia – Victimology Society of Serbia
On the occasion of the #EuropeanDayForVictimsofCrime Victimology Society of Serbia issued a press release which is available here (only in Serbian for now)
UK – Victim Support NI
Victim Support NI is highlighting the day by hosting an event which will look at the ideal Criminal Justice System, where victims are at the heart of the process.
They also launched their new add for Victim Support:
