Enhancing victim protection and support

Repairing the harm caused by hate crime requires a comprehensive national response that takes a victim-centred approach, placing a victim’s needs and rights at the heart of any action. Visit the page on ODIHR’s mandate to learn about OSCE participating States’ commitments to support victims of hate crime.
Through its EStAR project (Enhancing Stakeholder Awareness and Resources for Hate Crime Victim Support), ODIHR helps participating States and civil society to create the structures, collaboration mechanisms and tools essential to ensuring that victims of hate crimes are protected, have full access to justice and receive the specialist support they need. The EStAR project offers guidance and practical resources to criminal justice professionals and victim support practitioners to meaningfully protect, engage with and assist victims of hate crime. All resources can be accessed via the links below.
Additionally, the project has produced the following three video interviews with selected experts, who talk about their work and different aspects of hate crime victim support.
1. Enhancing understanding and responding to victims’ needs:
- Understanding the Needs of Hate Crime Victims
- Model Guidance on Individual Needs Assessments of Hate Crime Victims
- Compendium: Practices on Structural Frameworks for Individual Needs Assessment (INA) of Hate Crime Victims and Referrals
2. Improving the status of hate crime victims in the criminal justice system:
- Hate Crime Victims in the Criminal Justice System: A Practical Guide
- Webinar on Restorative Justice Solutions for Hate Crime
- Webinar on Participation of Hate Crime Victims in Criminal Proceedings
3. Strengthening the ability of national criminal justice system agencies to ensure sensitive and respectful treatment of hate crime victims:
- Model Guidance on Sensitive and Respectful Treatment of Hate Crime Victims in the Criminal Justice System
- Sensitive and Respectful Treatment of Hate Crime Victims: Training Course for Criminal Justice Professionals
4. Assisting States to identify strengths and gaps in their national systems for hate crime victim support in order to enhance protection and support:
- Diagnostic Tool for Assessing National Hate Crime Victim Support Systems
- Digital Diagnostic Tool to Assess National Hate Crime Victim Support Systems
- The State of Support Structures and Specialist Services for Hate Crime Victims: Baseline Report
5. Promoting effective collaboration between victim support organizations and the criminal justice system:
- Structural Arrangements for Hate Crime Victim Support: Policy Brief
- Compendium: CSO-Government Collaboration Models
6. Providing guidance to support providers to develop and strengthen services for victims of hate crime: