On September 26-27, VSE’s Policy Officer Ruth Shrimpling and Communications Officer Marina Kazakova took part in ‘Call It Hate’ conference in Budapest and showcased VSE’s ongoing ‘Crime Is Crime. Even Online’ campaign (https://crimeiscrime.eu/).
The conference was a meeting point to present the results of a 2-year project “Call It Hate: Raising Awareness of Anti-LGBT Hate Crime – CIH”. The project partners from 10 EU countries shared with the attendees the analysis of the implementation of the Directive 2012/29/EU with regard to victims of anti-LGBT hate crime and presented their awareness raising campaigns that took place in their respective countries.
‘Call it Out’, an Irish LGBT+ public awareness and education campaign, has won the Golden Award at the European ‘Call It Hate’ awards.
The survey, commissioned by the Polish LGBT organisation Lambda Warsaw on behalf of the Call It Hate project consortium, asked respondents in 10 EU states to evaluate how likely they would be to react (either directly, by personally intervening, or indirectly, by calling the police) if they saw a lesbian, a gay man or a transgender person being pushed and slapped on the street by a stranger. For comparison, respondents were asked about the likelihood of intervention in cases of attacks on members of other groups that are vulnerable to violence, as well as on an undescribed “someone”.
According to results of the survey, lesbians, gay men and transgender people are less likely to receive help than an undescribed “someone” when they are victimised, a recent survey conducted in 10 EU member states found. Respondents in Lithuania are most willing to react against violence targeting lesbians, gay men or transgender victims, while those in Bulgaria are least likely to intervene.
The greatest empathy for lesbian, gay and transgender victims assaulted on the street was recorded for Western European countries, where the differences between these groups and the straight couple used as a reference group were also the smallest (e.g., 8.8 vs. 9.0 in Ireland). Bulgarians turned out to have the least amount of empathy, scoring 7.3 for a heterosexual couple and only 5.4 for lesbian, gay and trans victims.
Among LGBT people, lesbian victims generate the most empathy (8.24), however, still less than a heterosexual couple. Gay men receive the least empathy (7.64), while transgender victims are in the middle with the score of 7.83.
More information about the campaign on https://crimeiscrime.eu/.