On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, November 25th, APAV promotes a new raising awareness campaign.

Join this campaign! Write a sign of violence, with the hashtag #ésinaldeviolência. Then take a picture, share it on your Instagram, identify the @apav_online page, and invite your friends to participate.

If it is a sign of violence, contact the APAV Victim Support Line: 116 006 (free toll).

Victim Support Europe is organising the conference “Establishing Victims’ Rights and Support Services in Challenging Times”, hosted at the European Economic and Social Committee on 29 November 2016.

In 2012, the Member States of the European Union, supported by the European Parliament and the European and Economic Social Committee committed to EU legislation establishing minimum rights and services for all victims of crime. The Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime was widely recognised as ambitious but realistic.

A year after the deadline for implementation of the EU Victims’ Rights Directive, and at a time when Europe is facing numerous economic, social and security challenges, we examine the state of play in EU Member States. First the conference will highlight the successes and failures of States in implementing minimum standards to meet the needs of victims of crime. The latter half of the conference will address the support needs of victims and survivors of terrorism. The focus will be on the development of victim oriented responses and the EU’s role in supporting these efforts.

Speakers from diverse areas of expertise - including victims of crime, Security Commissioner Julian King, MEP Monika Hohlmeier, Alexandra Jour-Schroeder (DG Justice), Azzeddine Salmane (UNODC), Kathleen Walker-Shaw (EESC) and victim support organisations: Levent Altan (VSE) & Roberta Lepre (VS Malta) - will speak on current developments, problems faced by all victims and priorities for specific areas such as terrorism.

http://victimsupport.eu/news/vse-conference-establishing-victims-rights-in-challenging-times/

Information and communication technologies represent nowadays fundamental tools for promoting the access to support and information in cases of violence or crime. Tools such as the e-mail, informative websites and helplines represent valuable distance-based support services for victims of crime, particularly for those victims who would not have access to support.

Given the emergence of this reality and the changes in the current ways of communication, the Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV) developed a survey about distance-based support for victims of crime, which had the participation of 60 European victim support organisations and support services.

The results of the survey revealed that the majority of the participant entities has distance-based support services for victims of crime, being those helplines, online support tools or both.

In the specific case of online support for victims of crime, the conventional forms of support and information, such as the e-mail or the websites, were pointed as the most used online support tools.

Victim support organisations and support services identified several advantages in delivering online support for victims of crime, such as the increased access to support and the flexibility/convenience in the access to support services. The results also revealed that a significant proportion of entities without online support tools is reluctant or undecided about their willingness to develop/implement online support services.

This survey was developed under Project T@LK – online support for victims of crime, promoted by the Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV) and co-financed by the Justice Programme of the European Union. The project has the partnership of Victim Support Malta, Human Rights Monitoring Institute, Victim Support Finland, Catalan Society of Victimology and Victim Support Europe.

The full report with the results of the survey is available here.

APAV won the award for “Best Advertiser”, in the category of “Local Performance” at the El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2016 Festival. APAV won that award for the “Home” awareness campaign, developed by the FCB Lisbon agency for APAV. The award was presented on November 3rd, at the ceremony which took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.