ODIHR’s hate crime reporting for 2013 is now available

OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) released hate crime data for 2013. Thirty-six participating States submitted information, along with 109 NGOs covering incidents in 45 countries, including Lithuania.

The national LGBT* rights organization LGL notified ODIHR about two physical assaults resulting in serious injuries, including the gang-rape of a gay man, a further five physical assaults, including an assault by a group against a gay man following his attendance at a gay pride event, two incidents of damage to property and one threat, reported via LGL’s anonymous crime report form during 2013.

Found at the bottom of each country page, key observations are prepared by ODIHR based on the commitments on hate crime collection made by participating State. The issues addressed by the observations range from those related to basic commitments, such as the need to periodically report some information or data to ODIHR on hate crime, to more specific commitments, such as providing data disaggregated by bias motivations, or encouraging victims to report in collaboration with civil society.

These recommendations can draw governments’ attention to potential gaps in their hate crime data collection, and help them help identify areas for improvement.

Under-reporting remains a key challenge. Many victims do not come forward to report hate crimes. This happens for a number of reasons, ranging from language barriers to mistrust in the authorities or fear of reprisals. ODIHR works closely with civil society to overcome this challenge and promote and assist co-operation between civil society and governments.

The national LGBT* rights organization LGL would like to remind that most hate crimes, among which are many attacks against LGBT* people and their allies, are left unreported, their true motives are left uncovered and attackers often remain unpunished. We urge to report about hate crimes to Law enforcement officers or to fill in LGL’s anonymous crime report form.