properly documented by police; prosecutors are not always able to properly recognize
relevant indicators and to file charges accordingly; while judges still struggle to recognize
bias motivation when adjudicating cases.
On 7 and 8 April, the Mission supported an awareness-raising training on hate crimes
against the LGBT community for the Sarajevo Canton Police. The event was organized by
the Sarajevo Open Centre NGO with assistance from the Heinrich Boll Foundation in BiH.
Twenty-one police officers attended the event. The Mission briefed the trainees about the
concept of hate crimes and its findings on the phenomenon from information gathered from
its field offices located across BiH, and also moderated the discussion that followed. The
training focused on how police should actively address the issues faced by the LGBT
population, including by fighting common prejudices and working to prevent crimes motivated
by hatred.
On 7 and 8 July, the Mission delivered a presentation on hate crimes at a training organized
for police by the Federation BiH Police Academy. The training was attended by 32 police
officers from the Federation BiH and Brčko District. The main topics discussed related to the
international and domestic legal framework for hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents,
obstacles to effectively fighting hate crimes, and the sentencing practices of local courts. The
Mission shared current practices and challenges in the prosecution of hate crimes in BiH,
and engaged participants in a discussion on a practical case study for identifying bias
indicators.
Then, on 25 and 26 September, the Mission organized a hate crimes training for in-service
police officers from the Federation BiH and Brčko District in co-operation with the Federation
BiH Police Academy. This time the event was for 33 police inspectors/investigators from
criminal investigation departments who had not received previous hate crimes training.
Training of police on hate crimes complements ongoing Mission training for judges and
prosecutors aimed at advancing accountability for hate-motivated crimes. In 2014, more than
50 judges and prosecutors were trained on bias-motivated incidents and hate crimes.
Mission trainings were organized in partnership with external experts and entity-level Judicial
and Prosecutorial Centres, with focus placed on the legal framework, international standards
and sociological and security aspects of hate crimes.
Domestic Violence
In December, the Mission’s IT team completed the development of a database on domestic
violence instances in Federation BiH, as part of the Mission’s Memorandum of
Understanding with the Federation BiH Gender Centre. A working group of social workers,
police officers and safe house representatives was created in May and assisted in the
development of the database. Since testing the new tool on real cases, three teams of
representatives from social welfare centres and police stations have begun the process of
uploading relevant data. The database will be progressively introduced for all safe houses,
SOS phone lines, social welfare centres and police station staff working on the
implementation and monitoring of protective measures in domestic violence cases in the
Federation BiH and should be fully operational in 2016. The main aim is to have all safe
houses, social welfare centres and police stations in the Federation BiH upload basic data on
domestic violence cases electronically for the Federation BiH Gender Centre, in line with the
Federation BiH Strategy on Domestic Violence. In 2015, the Mission will support organization
of five trainings across the Federation BiH for the relevant social workers and police officers.
This is one of the first databases in the region that collects data on reported instances of
domestic violence.
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