EUROPE | FRA report on victims of crime in the EU

In January 2015, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published a report entitled “Victims of crime in the EU: the extent and nature of support for victims”, the first comprehensive assessment of victim support services throughout the European Union. For the report, FRA has collected data from all 28 Member States in order to provide information and analysis on current procedures at national level.

FRA’s findings show that despite improvements and a growing number of best practices, challenges remain in many Member States to establish wide-ranging, targeted and well-resourced victim support services. Suggestions to improve the situation include:

• EU Member States need to ensure the provision of targeted support services, including trauma support and counselling, for victims with specific needs, for example victims with a disability, victims of sexual violence, or irregular migrants who become victims of crime.
• Bureaucratic hurdles should be removed so that legal aid is made available to victims who are party to criminal proceedings in the same way as it currently is to defendants.
• To encourage more victims to come forward and report crimes, EU Member States should ensure that information about victim support is made immediately available by all authorities and public services with which victims come into contact, including the health service.

The report is published 10 months before the 16 November 2015 deadline for EU Member States to transpose the Directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, commonly known as the Victims’ Directive, into national law.

The report is closely linked to FRA’s other work on access to justice, discrimination and hate crime, and in particular to the findings of the Agency’s large scale surveys of people who are most often victimised. The results of this work can be found in publications such as the LGBT full results report, the report on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in the EU, or the report on Violence against women.

Source: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)