Blog Article
Intolerance, discrimination and hate have been growing in the past decades, with clear implications for the European setting. More recently, these phenomena have been echoing the consequences of the current geopolitical conflict-based global panorama. Specifically, extremist groups, across the spectrum, have been exploiting and instrumentalising the aftermath of the Hamas 7th of October attacks and Israeli military aggression campaign in Palestine, the war in Ukraine, and the spread of disinformation and misinformation online, increasingly benefiting from technologically driven advancements. When taken together, these phenomena have led to an upsurge of discrimination and bias incidents in Europe, targeting various cultural and ethnic communities (Boyd, 2024; Fundamental Rights Agency, 2024; Shtuni, 2024; Can, 2023).
Further, and as both a consequence and cause of the growing societal polarisation, intolerance and hate rhetoric are getting ‘normalised’ in European societies. Such can be seen in different spheres, with macro, meso and micro implications. As an example, within the political sphere, intolerance has been underlying the common populist turn which has been sweeping across Europe. In fact, despite national specificities, shared features can be found in how different political actors cement a notion of otherness, benefiting from and promoting intolerance. Nevertheless, such tendencies are evading the political realm, affecting communities and how these interact with one another and amongst themselves.
Indeed, across Europe, different manifestations and incidents showcase how certain groups, emphasising those with varied religious, cultural, and ethnical backgrounds, but also those belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, have been targeted by hate, which is now diluted out of far-right extremist milieus into mainstream settings. Such reality has been recognised at the European level, when, back in 2021, the Fundamental Rights Agency pointed out that somewhere between 30 to 49% of Europeans and those residing in Europe stated to have been harassed due to hate bias in the previous year (FRA, 2021).
If looking solely at the 21st century, different macro and supranational entities, such as the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe) and UN (United Nations), recognised how stigmatising and de-humanising incidents, targeting individuals and groups due to who they are, in terms of age, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, nationality, religion, nationality, ethnicity, as well as the intersectionality between those social categories, have impacted societal and governmental trust. Consequently, the past 20 years have been marked by a clear, yet reactive, focus and investment in better researching and prosecuting hate-motivated incidents. Such is highlighted through several key policy documents, such as the UN’s ‘Durban Declaration’ or the OSCE Ministerial Council Decision 12/04, both focusing on the improvement of hate incidents reporting, aiming to discover the ever-changing layers of the phenomenon. However, considering how hate and its consequences are not decreasing, the European Parliament confirms how hate is the growing threat of the 21st century. Through varied communications and policy documents, Europe is calling for a joint commitment to eradicate hate, to criminalise and prosecute hate speech and hate crimes across member states, advocating for universal protection for victims (European Parliament, 2024; European Commission, 2023).
Nevertheless, despite acknowledging that hate and intolerance are not new phenomena, some of their newest manifestations must be accounted for, especially those that concern digitalisation processes. For such, different trends have been surging, highlighting on the one hand, the importance of online channels, either via closed message circuits or wider platforms (e.g., 8chan, 4chan), easing the propagation of anti-feminist sentiments and xenophobia. On the other hand, gamification trends are also impacting the extremist and hateful scene, which can positively blur the boundaries of what is intolerance, hate and violence (Paillé, Galley, Thue & Wilkinson, 2024).
However, despite the evolving landscape of intolerance, hate and extremism, a common feature remains, and that is the undeniable effect it carries to those who are victimised by it.
The impact on victims:
Recognising the growing presence of hate and intolerance and how these contribute to breeding extremist milieus requires looking at the affected side, meaning those who have been victimised. This also reflects the EU’s understanding, as in the past years, victims’ rights have risen to the EU agenda.
“A Union of equality must ensure access to justice to all victims of crime, no matter where in the EU or in what circumstances the crime took place” (European Commission, 2020, p. 1)
Grounding the EU Strategy on Victims’ Rights (2020-2025), this goal has led to a European-wide policy that strives to empower victims of crime, calling on an integrated and co-joint work as the solution to ensure and uphold victims’ rights and needs. This Strategy highlights the need to improve the support and protection of victims, emphasising the need to work with those most vulnerable, including those who suffered from hate, extremism and terrorism-related incidents. Indeed, victims of hate and extremism-related incidents are targeted based on their identity and personal characteristics, which are not open to change (EStAR, 2022). This means that these victims are assailed based on who they are, leading to several individual consequences, such as heightened fear, anxiety, insecurity, and a damaged sense of self, mostly on a temporary basis (Victim Support, n.d.). Nevertheless, hate and extremist incidents, by signalling a collective prejudice, often so systemic, also carry broader implications for communities and groups, with the potential of weakening a sense of belonging and safety, overall leaving communities more vulnerable.
Consequently, if hate incidents and crimes express prejudice and bias towards whole communities and groups, either based on age, gender identity, language, nationality, religion, or ethnicity, oftentimes they hide the intersectionality of discrimination, in which minority groups are the most affected.
With the above in consideration, the key question concerns the recognition and implementation of the EU-level policy and legislation at the national and local levels and how it impacts victim support.
Data from 2021 shed light on a discouraging reality, estimating that 5 to 9 out of every 10 hate incidents go unreported (FRA, 2021). When trying to make sense of this information, some key aspects pop up, namely, lack of information and trust, fear of retaliation, trauma and humiliation, extending to how these might be present, mostly unintentionally, from the justice professionals’ side (FRA, 2021). When taken together, these challenges showcase how criminal proceedings are not fully designed to account for victims’ needs, calling for revamped efforts to comprehensively understand the functioning of criminal justice and victim support services, aiming to map challenges and good practices towards a victim-centred approach in hate and extremism-related cases.
Practitioners’ insights and experiences: Facts, challenges and opportunities
Following a multi-method data collection approach, achieved in the scope of the VicTory project [1], different European key practitioners, working with victims within different settings and moments, including criminal justice professionals, restorative justice practitioners, policymakers, and case managers from both governmental and non-governmental entities, directly provided their insights and experiences when it comes to supporting and working with victims of hate and extremism-related incidents.
Building firstly on a European-wide survey, gathering close to 100 answers, it became clear that cases of hate and discrimination are growing, becoming the 3rd biggest focus of the surveyed professionals, with around 60% representation, appearing only behind domestic and sexual violence. As for the main identified motivations for these, ethnicity and race were the most reported, followed very closely by sexual orientation. As for cases of violent extremism and terrorism, and being mindful of potential differences in interpretations and legislation, 25% of respondents stated this also appeared as a concern in their work when supporting victims.
Despite recognising the national specificities of legal provisions, as around 80% of the surveyed practitioners stated to be familiar with the specific national legal frameworks to use, over half of them also recognised their limited perceived effectiveness.
Consequently, and without neglecting the positive legal improvements towards the establishment of a victim-centred approach, their practical echo was not fully perceived by practitioners, with around 58% of the respondents stating to partially implementing them (Figure 1).
“Law in the books vs. Law in practice”: It showcases the importance of continuous capacity building for practitioners and bottom-up processes.
To further complexify the topic, practitioners pointed out the challenges to fully and comprehensively understand European-wide legislation and combine it with national-based legal frameworks. Such was seen as having different implications in different countries, highlighting, as an example, the case of Portugal, where practitioners drew attention to legal gaps, starting first and foremost with the lack of a concrete definition of what hate is and what hate crimes could be considered. Consequently, and upholding the importance of setting legal definitions, practitioners emphasised how the correct understanding, reporting and judicial management of hate and extremism-related incidents is jeopardised without clear legal definitions to ground their work.
By highlighting national specificities, practitioners demonstrated how the support of victims of hate and extremism, even with EU policy, is not a cohesive process, since macro and meso factors can impact the phenomenon. Here, and directly building upon comprehensive focus group sessions, practitioners from Italy, Finland and Portugal emphasised how working in hate and extremism is not an easy task when the social and political realms are becoming polarised, and intolerance, slowly, but steadily grows normal. In such a setting, what can practitioners do to support victims?
When asked this question, practitioners delved into different topics, agreeing, across Italy, Finland, Portugal and Spain, with clear European repercussions, that the focus must lie on a paradigm shift, going from retribution and rehabilitation-focused justice to a victim-centred one.
Drawing insights from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, n.d.), a victim-centred approach can be theoretically defined as a way of engaging victims, prioritising their voices, with active and emphatic professionals on the other side, to avoid re-traumatisation, focusing on victims’ safety, rights, well-being, expressed needs and choices. Practitioners seem to align with this definition, as through their insights, a victim-centred approach can be defined as a holistic framework that prioritises the individual needs, safety, rights, and experiences of each victim throughout all stages of intervention and policy. It is characterised by empowering victims to have ownership and control over processes affecting them, ensuring they are meaningfully participating and actively listened to, treated with respect and sensitivity, and provided with tailored, comprehensive and accessible support and information, facilitated through collaboration and effective referrals. In sum, a victim-centred approach aims to give victims their voice and control back, ensuring an empathic delivery of services, following a non-judgemental approach.
In practice, the surveyed and interviewed practitioners agreed on how a victim-centred approach must be grounded on a dynamic axis, which places at its core processes of ownership and meaningful participation, mobilising cultural sensitivity and inclusion concerns, along two major dimensions: (i) information and (ii) safety.
Looking first at the information dimension, this was the paramount type of support practitioners said to provide, gathering around 70% of the answers. In terms of the type of information provided, this mostly concerns victims’ rights and how to exercise them, closely followed by specialised services and guidance on criminal and legal proceedings, aligning with the EU guidance in ensuring victims are aware of their rights.
As for safety, practitioners agreed that due to the nature of hate and extremism incidents, the potential for continuous harm is exponentially greater, requiring closer assessments and well-crafted plans. However, this isn’t the generic societal and political understanding, which has been failing to prioritise hate incidents, leading to a lesser awareness of the phenomenon and its repercussions, but also, and perhaps most importantly, to fewer resources being allocated. The consequence? Often, victim support organisations and justice professionals cannot provide a comprehensive, long-term, sustainable safety plan for these victims, hindering the empowering and participatory nature of the process. Such concerns were also voiced by the surveyed practitioners, even if indirectly, as 50% of these mentioned not collecting feedback from victims after their support services, thus showcasing the lack of victims’ involvement and agency in shaping and contributing to the support services they receive.
Further, the lack of resources was a shared concern, dually displayed across the surveyed European countries (i.e., Bulgaria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey). Firstly, resources were short in terms of stable funding, especially for non-governmental victim support organisations. Secondly, resources were also missing to ensure victims’ continuous and complete support, with clear repercussions for victim support and justice professionals, who face especially demanding tasks in a resource-tight setting, where continuous capacitation, including in some proven best practices (e.g., restorative justice), supervision and intervision schemes might not be available. Consequently, practitioners, both from the governmental and non-governmental sides, agreed that to mitigate the mapped challenges, a cooperative solution was required, one that could contribute to the establishment of a victim-support cross-institutional culture.
Beyond challenges: Cooperative solutions and best practices to learn from
Despite the many challenges and needs reported, when agreeing that a victim-centred approach must be developed and implemented to support those suffering from hate and extremism incidents, different potential solutions were put forward, stemming from two key understandings. Firstly, cross-sectoral cooperation, awareness-raising and capacitation are required. Secondly, criminal and processual proceedings and perceptions must be changed, shifting the focus from solely collecting evidence to giving space for reparation and restoration to be achieved.
Looking at cooperation first, the great majority of surveyed practitioners, including those interviewed during the focus group sessions, agreed that adequate support and protection for victims of hate and extremism require the mitigation of fragmented systems. Rather, coordination mechanisms must connect different professionals across sectors and organisations, including even adjacent fields, such as the health and welfare systems.
Similarly, practitioners agreed on the need to refresh what is often understood by justice and its consequences, moving away from the idea of revenge and instead adopting justice as a mechanism for reparation while respecting victims’ dignity and treating them with compassion (UN, n.d.). To do so, the proposal is to move justice beyond the scope of the criminal justice system to a communitarian-based response. Through it, a systemic prevention and response approach can be mobilised, focusing on problem-solving whilst reinforcing shared principles and standards (Karp & Clear, 2000).
When combining both axes, a good practice can be found scattered around Europe, under the scope of the Restorative City initiative. Promoted by the European Forum for Restorative Justice and recognising how cities have turned into hubs for innovation and the co-creation of knowledge, but also for societal problems, including discrimination, polarisation and hate, this ground-breaking initiative underlines how restorative-led principles should be locally disseminated and implemented, especially focusing on the different settings where conflict can take place. By doing so, intercultural communities are promoted, empowering them and their various professional categories, ranging from teachers to law enforcement, to holistically solve conflicts, thus dealing with the harm, its causes and consequences, involving all those involved, including victims. Consequently, forums for dialogue and for recomposing social fractures are leading the way in 10 European cities, dealing with discrimination, polarisation and hate comprehensively (Vasilescu, 2023).
A significant step forward: VicTory’s Handbook of Best and Promising Practices in Victim Support
Recognising the need to increase knowledge turnover and cooperation in victim support, and in specific, concerning cases of hate and extremism, the VicTory project is committed to sharing the outcomes of its data collection efforts through its Handbook of Best and Promising Practices in Victim Support.
VicTory’s Handbook on Best and Promising Practices In Victim Support adopted an innovative mixed approach, summarising the main outcomes of three stages of data collection: a comprehensive desk research, identifying best and promising practices around victim support; a European-level online survey, gathering insights from practitioners, concerning their practices, needs and challenges, alongside those victims’ needs; and five focus group discussions, four of them with a national focus (i.e., Finland, Italy, Portugal and Spain), and a European-wide one, allowing practitioners, coming from the criminal justice and civil society to share first-hand, their experiences in supporting victims of hate and (violent) extremism, highlighting the successes and identifying areas that still need improvement.
VicTory’s handbook comprises three main sections. The first section focuses on the legal component, mapping and detailing the best and promising legislative initiatives from a national and European standpoint. The second section outlines the current protocols, principles, projects, and routines, including good practices, and identifies gaps from both national and European perspectives. One notable example identified was the creation by the European Commission of the High-Level Group on Hate Speech and Hate Crime. Since 2016, the group has played a pivotal role in supporting the enforcement of the 2008 Council Framework Decision to combat racism and xenophobia. The group has also played an important role in improving hate crime reporting, encouraging victims to step forward. To conclude, the last section presents the lessons learned and the encountered challenges practitioners highlighted. Drawing close attention to the pressing needs, current gaps and challenges identified by practitioners, the Handbook settles on how the absence of national legal frameworks for victims of hate and (violent) extremism incidents poses a common issue across European countries, hindering the correct identification of victims and the correct implementation of their rights.
By echoing the practitioners’ voices, and by proxy, victims, VicTory’s Handbook, which will soon be available, is a valuable resource for professionals and practitioners working with victims of hate and extremism incidents, either coming from the criminal justice system or civil society. Through its comprehensive approach, the Handbook confirms the importance of learning from good practices, this way shaping better cross-sectoral support efforts, with potential for grounded innovation.
The VicTory project: An innovative victim-centred approach to hate and extremism
Building upon the recognised need to empower victims of hate and extremism and promote their adequate support, both directly and by proxy, namely through the promotion of practitioners’ competencies and resources, the VicTory project, a European funded initiative promoted by the JUST programme is putting forward an innovative approach to hate and (violent) extremism.
As the surveyed practitioners confirmed, there are still challenges and needs to be overcome to fully and comprehensively support victims of hate and extremism incidents and mitigate the phenomenon. When coupled together, these unique challenges and needs require an investment in the identification of best and promising practices, cross-sectoral and holistic cooperation schemes and opportunities, continuous training and capacitation in a tailored manner, and innovative and community-based responses to hate and extremism. This is at the core of the VicTory project, which, through its efforts, is working to put forward a victim-centred approach to hate and extremism, mitigating secondary victimisation and promoting reparation and reconciliation.
Learn more about the VicTory Project – Restorative and victim-centred approach to mitigate hate and (violent) extremism – here.
[1] The VicTory ‘Restorative and victim-centred approach to mitigate hate and (violent) extremism’ project is financed under the JUST programme of the EU. This article reflects only the views of the authors, hence neither the JUST programme nor the European Commission can be held responsible for its and any outcomes.
References
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Can, Y. (2023, October 20). Digital deception: Disinformation’s impact in the Israel-Hamas war. Wilson Center.
Enhancing stakeholder awareness and resources for hate crime victim support (2022). Compendium: Practices of civil society and government collaboration for effective hate crime victim support. EStAR.
European Commission (2020). EU Strategy on victims’ rights (2020-2025). EC.
European Commission (2023). Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council: No place for hate: A Europe united against hatred.
European Parliament (2024). European Parliament Resolution of 18 January 2024 on extending the list of EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime. Official Journal of the European Union.
Fundamental Rights Agency (2024). Being Muslim in the EU: Experiences of Muslims. FRA.
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Karp, D. & Clear, T. (2000). Community Justice: A conceptual framework. National institute of justice.
Paillé, P., Galley, C., Thue, K. & Wilkinson, B. (2021). Gamification and online hate speech: Quarterly Research Review. RAN Policy Support
United Nations (n.d.). Declaration of basic principles of justice for victims of crime and abuse of power.
Vasilescu, C. (2023). A journey around restorative cities in the world: A travel guide. European Forum for Restorative Justice: Leuven;
Margarida Damas is the Head of Unit for Community Inclusion and Social Development, as part of the Radicalisation, Violent Extremism and Organised Crime Portfolio at IPS_Innovative Prison Systems. She is a criminologist, holding a Master degree in Sociology, granted by ISCTE-IUL, with a specialisation in Human Rights. As part of her commitment to improve integration and build more resilient communities, Margarida recently completed a post-graduate degree in Risk Intervention and Inclusion Promotion, granted by Lusófona University. Margarida is a certified trainer, and has extensive experience in training community and educational practitioners on comprehensive techniques to prevent radicalisation and promote social inclusion.
Mónica Gonçalves is a Researcher & Consultant, as part of the Radicalisation, Violent Extremism and Organised Crime Portfolio at IPS_Innovative Prison Systems. She holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Minho and a master’s degree in criminal science, with specialisation in criminology from the same university. Her dissertation focused on the prevalence of cyberstalking victimisation among a population of college students, with the aim of studying the habits of usage of social media and its correlation with cyberstalking occurrence. She did a traineeship at Fembloc, which is a non-profit project based in Catalonia involved in designing a model for tackling digital gender-based violence (incl. victims of hate speech and hate crime) from a feminist intersectional perspective.
With contributions of Rascha Albaba & Lucia Afonso Pérez, from FUNDEA-Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies
