Workshop on Hate Crimes for Policewomen

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and "Policewomen's Network" Association organized workshop on the topic “Hate Crimes”, which was held in Jahorina Mountain today (13/06/2019.) The workshop was attended by 34 policewomen from 17 law enforcement agencies (Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of B&H, SIPA, Border Police of B&H, Directorate of Federal Police, Brcko District Police, Federal Judicial Police and 10 Cantonal MOIs).

During the lecture, all the significant topics regarding to this issue (the concept of hate crimes, legal framework, indicators of hate/prejudices, importance of efficient investigation and prosecution of criminal offenses) where covered, and the participants had the opportunity to analyze real case from practice.

The role of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fight against this forms of crimes was presented. Incidents made from hate are frequent violence expression of intolerance which spread fear and dissention into communities. Key question in counter this incidents is solving the problem of prejudices that those destroying behaviors are based on.

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina support government institutions, legal system, local government authorities and civil society to improve efficiency in reaction to this kind of incidents.

As all the attendees agreed, today’s workshop has been very useful specially taking to consideration the fact that many policewomen attended education on this topic for the first time.