This report presents 41 good practices on combating underreporting and supporting victims of anti-LGBT hate crime that were selected from nine European countries participating in the project “Come Forward”.
As one of the project activities, partner organizations have conducted a research on the existing systems for reporting anti-LGBT hate crime and victim support services. One of the goals of the research was to identify good practices on combating underreporting and supporting victims of anti-LGBT hate crime in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom. This report presents the result of the efforts to identify good practices and, with that, provide useful suggestions on how to further improve the capacities of official authorities and NGOs for tackling anti-LGBT crime. Each practice is accompanied with a short description, information about the organization or institution responsible for its implementation and the country where the particular practice is established. The selected 41 practices are divided in the following areas: 1) training of official authorities; 2) specialized police units; 3) creating official documents for tackling anti-LGBT hate crime; 4) hate crime reporting systems; 5) victim support services; 6) working with high school students; 7) collaboration of various authorities and NGOs in combating hate crime and 8) advancing legal protection of LGBT people. A certain number of the selected practices are not specifically targeted to the LGBT community. However, they represent a positive practice that could be adjusted to better respond to the needs of victims of anti-LGBT hate crime.