47 OSCE participating States have submitted hate crime information to ODIHR for 2024. Of these, 42 provided statistics, while 35 provided statistics disaggregated by bias motivation.
The official figures are complemented by reports on hate incidents from 121 civil society groups, covering 47 participating States. These contributions amount to 12,714 hate incidents, including 7,344 statistical incidents and 5,370 incidents for which detailed descriptions were provided. This information includes incidents provided by the Holy See, UNHCR and OSCE missions.
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General challenges to reporting hate crimes
This year, ODIHR observes the same number of states that submit data and information for the Hate Crime Report, while also experiencing a significant increase in the number of incidents submitted by civil society organizations (CSOs).
However, ten OSCE participating States consistently do not meet their basic commitment to collect hate crime information and statistics and report it to ODIHR. While ODIHR acknowledges the efforts made by states to improve hate crime recording, it continues to observe a gap between the relatively low numbers of officially recorded hate crimes and the higher levels of incidents reported by CSOs in many participating States.
In particular, ODIHR observes that many states fail to produce comprehensive data, especially regarding prosecuted and sentenced hate crimes. This indicates that states do not have in place the mechanisms and structures to comprehensively record and collect data on hate crimes, or lack coordinating structures to facilitate the exchange of data among police, prosecutors, and the judiciary.
At the same time, some states do not disaggregate hate crime data by bias motivation, resulting in gaps in policy responses to identify and support the most targeted victim groups or communities.
In this regard, ODIHR observes that majority of states would benefit from raising awareness among and building the capacity of police, prosecutors and judges to record, investigate and prosecute hate crime cases. To meet this need, many OSCE participating States should develop national hate crime training programmes – or scale up existing programmes – and embed these in police academies and judicial schools. Prosecutors and judges, in particular, remain under-reached by current national capacity-building efforts to address hate crime.
Further, some states would benefit from introducing or reviewing their hate crime laws, so that bias motivation can be effectively acknowledged and appropriate penalties imposed on the perpetrators. Incomplete or inadequate legislation remains a major obstacle for prosecutors, and means that some hate crimes are not investigated as such or are incorrectly prosecuted as “hate speech” offences. This can render hate crimes invisible, leaving victims without support or access to their rights and leading to misinformed policy and legal responses.
Despite the overall uptick in the number of CSOs reporting incidents to ODIHR, some victim groups are significantly under-represented in ODIHR’s report. This indicates that the capacity of some CSOs to monitor hate incidents and support vulnerable groups remains limited. It is essential that states provide civil society groups with sufficient funding, revoke repressive legislation and engage civil society actors in designing policies, strategies and programmes as part of a comprehensive approach to address hate crime.
ODIHR stands ready to offer assistance to OSCE participating States, including a range of resources and tools to help them improve hate crime monitoring, collecting and recording practices, address hate crime victims’ needs, and strengthen co-operation with civil society.