Knowledge Comes First: OSCE Training On Hate Crimes

On November 13014, the threshold of the Tolerance day, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights facilitated a Training on Hate Crimes in Kyiv. Ms. Olha Fryndak, Deputy Head of Female NGO “Maryam” who also represented Human rights NGO “Together With The Law” (both organisations are associates at the AUASO “Alraid”) on the training, spoke highly of the event which, on her opinion, was “really useful”.

The two-day event for 30 representatives of the civil society came within the framework of the Ukrainian current Chairmanship in the OSCE with “raising youngsters in the spirit of tolerance and non-discrimination” as one of the major priorities.

The participants not only listened to some lectures and read the related handouts and books on defining hate crimes and their main characteristics, but also studiet relevant Ukrainian legislation on the matter and different strategies and methods for Human Rights NGOs.

role games, exercising and discussing some real situations in workgroups skilled participants in defining hate crimes and distinguishing them from discrimination,enmity and genocide.

“the training was really useful for people working within Human Rights Protection, because they not only need to make a proper registration of each attack, hunt the question down and give adequate legal advice,but also provide support and, at the same time, expand their activities on preventing racism, xenophobia and intolerance artificially inflate in the Ukrainian society,” - Ms. Fryndak said.

The participants also learned the activities of International Human Rights NGOs and how they report the hate crimes in order to provide proper investigation.