Attendees awarded with certificates for completing the training “Protection of LGBTI people's rights”

A one-day workshop on "Investigation of Hate Crimes" was successfully conducted today in Sarajevo, attended by police officers from law enforcement agencies from all levels of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The workshop was realized within the project “Protection of human rights: Strenghtening the capacities of police agencies to combat violence against LGBTI population” which has been conducted with the support of US embassy.

Main subjects that has been covered in the introduction of the workshop was related to understanding of gender concept, different sexual orientation etc. as well as the essence of stereotypes and prejudices as motive for committing a hate crime. Besides that, the most common prejudices about LGBTI population has been discussed. The other part of the workshop was dedicated to investigation and ensuring the proofs of hate crimes, with the focus on indicators that are important for police to direct the investigation properly.

Taking into consideration that hate crimes are sending severe message of intolerance and causes fear in community to which they are directed, it is important for police to react promptly in every specific case. Also, because those criminal offences has tendency to escalate, which was emphasized over this training.

Within this workshop all the topics that are important for understanding prejudices as foundation for hate crimes, has been successfully covered, as well as the legal framework in B&H, related to this specific subject. Also there has been given clear directives that should lead to improvement of police work in further investigation of hate crimes. The final session of the workshop was dedicated to case studies.

The workshop has been rated as multi-useful by all the participants and lecturers and finished with awarding the certificates.

In the beginning of December of the current year, “Policewomen Network” Association will implement one more workshop on this subject, also within the mentioned project, parallel with the activities on developing a Handbook for police officers with the purpose to improve their work in the area of LGBTI rights protection.