Tackling Hate Crime

Alliance Against Hate Crime: Tackling Violence Against LGBTI Communities in Eastern Europe & the Caucuses

The Alliance Against Hate Crime is a coalition of organisations working to build the long-term capacity for LGBTI communities in Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia to respond to hate crime and hate speech against LGBTI people. 

Stonewall worked in close partnership with partners Asociația ACCEPT (Romania), Deystvie (Bulgaria), and a partner in Georgia, as well as the EuroCentralAsian Lesbian* Community, to deliver this programme of work.

You can read more about Hold My Hand, our campaign for LGBTQ+ safety in the UK.

You Are Heard

In 2021, in partnership with ERA (LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans & Turkey), Stonewall launched You Are Heard, an LGBTQI+ hate incident reporting website. 

This service provides a safe space for LGBTQ+ people and allies to report incidents in the region. 

Users can remain anonymous when reporting or add contact information if they wish to receive support from trusted local LGBTQI+ organisations. Individual reports won’t be shared with the police or governmental bodies – instead, local LGBTQI+ support organisations receive the information and data to manage and analyse, and use in their advocacy work across within the Western Balkans and Turkey.

Access to Justice

In 2016, Stonewall launched a two-year programme to address violence against LGBT communities in the Western Balkans and Turkey by engaging police forces, the judiciary and wider state institutions across the region and in the UK. 

The project also produced a toolkit on challenging violence through community engagement, which provided models of best practice to support continued advocacy from civil society to achieve progressive reforms in relation to anti-LGBT violence