The project Victims of Crime Implementation Assessment of Rights in Europe is coordinated by the Victim Support Europe and is co-funded by the European Commission JUST/2015/ACTION GRANTS, while the Association for the Prevention and Handling of Violence in the Family – SPAVO (Cyprus) acts as a partner. Other partners of the project are the following:

• Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima (Portugal)
• Slachtofferhulp Nederland (The Netherlands)
• Weisser Ring (Germany)
• Weisser Ring Austria (Austria)
• Bily Kruh Bezpeci (Czech Republic)
• Rikosuhripaivystys/Victim Support Finland (Finland)
• INAVEM (France)
• Victim Support Malta (Malta)
• Brottsofferjouren Sverige/Victim Support Sweden (Sweden)
• Bijeli krug Hrvatske /White Circle Croatia (Croatia)
• Stowarzyszenie SOS dla Rodziny/SOS for the Family Association (Poland)
• Crime Victims Helpline (Ireland)
• Associazione LIBRA Onlus (Italy)
• Equality and Human Rights Action Centre – ACTEDO (Romania)
• European Public Law Organization (EPLO) (Greece)
• University of Lleida/UdL (Spain)
• Human Rights Monitoring Institute (Lithuania)
• Društvo za nenasilno komunikacijo/ Association for non-violent Communication (Slovenia)
• Tilburg University, International Victimology Institute Tilburg – INTERVICT (The Netherlands)
• Brottsoffermyndigheten – Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority (Sweden).

The project has been designed to overcome the following problems:

1. Lack of existing, current research on the practical implementation of the Victims’ Directive,
2. Lack of an EU wide analysis of practical implementation,
3. Lack of a comprehensive analysis covering all articles of the Directive,
4. Lack of evidence base to carry out a practical analysis in all countries and relating to all articles of the Directive, and
5. Insufficient understanding for certain articles as to what constitutes sufficient implementation.

The overall aim of this project is to help ensure that the rights established in the Victims Directive are operating in practice. This will be achieved by assisting the EU Commission in its own assessment of implementation as well as providing national stakeholders with evidence of the state of implementation in their own countries.

The project will also assist with capacity building of staff at victim support organizations and restorative justice services on victims’ needs when seeking their services. Since the project aims to help organizations understand where the needs of victims are not being met as well as where there are good practices, this will help with the prioritization of their work and advocacy efforts.

In addition, the work to develop indicators will help victim support organizations to understand how to develop their own services to ensure there is a national provision of victim support compliant with minimum quality standards.

Our Association will actively participate in activities such as desk research to identify material assessing the practical and legal implementation of the victims’ directive at national level, set up and conduct a series of interviews with justice and non-justice practitioners and police makers, draft a national report, analyses how the victims’ directive is being implemented in practice, and provide recommendations to ensure the national system complies with the EU directive.

For more information about the project visit the official website of the Victim Support Europe organization: https://victimsupport.eu/about-us/our-projects/vociare/.