We are thrilled to welcome three new members from Ireland, Italia and Serbia to our victim support family: Federation for Victim Assistance (Ireland), Associazione Spondé (Italy) and Humanitarian Law Centre (Serbia).
We look forward to working together with you all, as we continue to expand our global reach to strengthen the rights and services for all victims of crime in Europe and beyond.
To conclude our 2019 membership achievements, we gained 5 new members, bringing us to the total of 58 members from 30 countries.
Thomas Brophy, Federation for Victim Assistance
The Federation for Victim Assistance, founded in 2005, is a voluntary non-profit charity comprising of fully trained Volunteers offering Emotional and Practical Assistance to all Victims of Crime and those that have experienced a traumatic incident. The service is also available to family members.
More info on: https://victimassistance.ie/
Associazione Spondé (Italy)
Born in 2014 with the aim of promoting a culture of peace, strengthening civic culture’s standards, contributing to the prevention and restraint of social alarm, and focusing on victims’rights. The primary goals of Associazione Spondé are: the realisation of cultural actions which seek to promote social change; primary and secondary prevention; training and guidance; social, economic, cultural and intercultural integration; the respect of victims’ rights, a peaceful resolution of conflicts; reconciliation; mediation in social, penal and family matters; the development of cooperation programs between developing countries. Their projects take place in 3 different cities: Rome, Palermo and Viterbo.
More info on: http://associazionesponde.it
Humanitarian Law Centre (Serbia)
The HLC was established in 1992, a human rights-based non-governmental organization that would document the egregious human rights violations that were then being perpetrated on a massive scale across the former Yugoslavia, during the armed conflicts in Croatia, in Bosnia, and later on Kosovo. The HLC supports post-Yugoslav societies in the promotion of the rule of law and acceptance of the legacy of mass human rights violations, and therefore in establishing the criminal responsibility of the perpetrators, serving justice, and preventing recurrence. During the 27 years long work, the HLC documented gross human rights violence during the conflict or conflict related violence. The HLC has been representing victims (injured parties) in war crimes cases through an Attorney at law (from 2003 the HLC has been representing more then 2000 victims of crimes), filing criminal complaints with the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutors (OWCP) against suspected perpetrators (from 2003 more then 30 criminal complaints), and sharing its documentation on war crimes. Also, the HLC has been identifying witnesses and victims and encouraging them to give evidence in court and thus contribute towards achieving justice for past crimes. The HLC also provide free legal aid for victim of human rights violation in litigation processes (more then 1000 victims were represented by the HLC).
More info on: http://www.hlc-rdc.org/?lang=de
