New funding program for data-collection on violence in Europe and Central Asia

ILGA-Europe invites organisations and initiative groups from the region of Europe and Central Asia to join our program aimed to support the LGBTI movement in its Documentation and Advocacy work.

This year we offer an opportunity to apply for funding to collect and document data on cases of violence against the LGBTI communities in Europe and Central Asia. We will support proposals focusing on collecting evidence that provides advocacy insights on the situations around institutionalised violence as well as tackling lack of support to the victims of domestic violence based on their SOGIESC.

This activity is launched under the priorities of Pathways 2, 4 and 5 of ILGA-Europe’s Strategic Framework for the period of 2019 – 2023. The grants will be supported from ILGA-Europe’s own funds, coming from private donations.

Deadline for applications: 15 November 2022, 23.59 CET (Brussels time).

Themes of the call

Through this program we intend to support 8-10 organisations/initiatives in one of the following thematic areas, which are currently requiring attention from the advocacy perspective and yet do have sufficient evidence documented.

1. Discrimination and violence by police and other criminal justice institutions  

ILGA-Europe members across our region report that LGBTI people, particularly LGBTI people facing multiple and/or intersectional marginalisation, are frequently subjected to human rights violations by police, even when reporting cases of hate crime. In addition, we often hear that the police and other institutions of criminal justice avoid properly investigating cases of violence against LGBTI people and brining perpetrators to justice, even when the country has adopted a legislative framework that provides for LGBTI-specific grounds for protection. However, when we report these instances to international institutions, to explain that this is a systemic issue which needs specific solutions, we often do not have the quantitative or systematic data to back up our claims.

2. Access of victims of domestic violence[1] to justice and victims support services

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, ILGA-Europe has been working on domestic violence against LGBTI people in our region. We continue hearing that LGBTI victims of domestic violence face specific challenges when attempting to access justice and support services. Negative experiences in dealing with government agencies or social support services because of their SOGIESC, can contribute to LGBTI victims feeling concerned they will not be understood or believed when disclosing abuse from their partners or family members. When LGBTI victims report abuse to law enforcement officials or social services, they can still face additional barriers to getting the necessary support to leave an abusive relationship or environment. Despite widespread domestic violence against LGBTI people and issues in accessing victims support services and justice, these issues remain invisible in official statistics as EU member states fail to record domestic violence against LGBTI people comprehensively and systematically. 

The specific goal and work that can be supported under this program:

The program is aimed at supporting collection of violence cases against the LGBTI communities through allocation of grants to organisations for collecting evidence of (1) institutionalised violence and (2) refusal to and/or lack of support for the victims of domestic violence because of their SOGIESC. Below are some details of what can be monitored and documented:

1. Discrimination and violence by police and other criminal justice institutions

We encourage applicants to look at human rights violations, not just among the police but also among other institutions of justice (prosecution, judiciary, defence), who either commit violations or refuse to sanction or investigate violence when it is their duty to do so. We encourage quantitative data collection to be disaggregated on intersecting identities such as race, migrant status, disability, age and gender, in order to show how certain LGBTI people are more exposed to violence, and to help activists have data to forge strong alliances with other marginalised groups who are working to tackle institutional violence in criminal justice. Below are some examples of cases for documentation:

1. When someone reports a case of discrimination, hate crime or hate speech with a SOGIESC motive and receives LGBTI-phobia from police/investigators, at the moment of reporting and/or during the investigation process.

2. Denial of treatment or mistreatment of LGBTI people in medical settings.

3. Systemic lack of prosecution in SOGIESC related cases, especially when the legal framework exists (i.e. non-implementation of the anti-discrimination or hate crime/hate speech law which has SOGIESC as aggravating factors).

2. Access of victims of domestic violence to justice and victims support services

As disaggregated data is essential to truly understanding the prevalence of domestic violence against LGBTI people and access to support services and enables informed decisions on where and how to target legislative protection, funding and other support, we are calling for project proposals aimed at quantitative data collection on barriers to access of victims of domestic violence to justice and victims support services. Below are some examples of cases for documentation:

1. When LGBTI person is suffering from domestic violence on the hands of partner or family member but does not report to the police because of lack of legal protection at the national level. For example, a person suffering intimate partner violence and living in same sex partnership cannot report intimate partner violence because national legislation defines intimate partner violence as violence experienced in different-sex partnerships (male perpetrators and female victims).

2. Denial of access to shelters for trans or male victims of domestic violence, in particular access for trans women to shelter for female victims of domestic violence.

3. Limited access to information. For instance, when LGBTI youth or children experience physical, psychological or economic harm at the hands of parent or legal guardian but they do not have access to hotlines to receive information on how and where to seek help.  

IMPORTANT! Submitted applications should concentrate on documentation of ONE type of violence: institutionalised OR domestic.

Budget and scope

Under this program ILGA-Europe will provide grants to LGBTI organisations and initiative groups in budget sizes depending on their annual budgets, organisational experience in Monitoring and Documentation, as well previous experience of implementing projects under the re-granting schemes of ILGA-Europe, including the Documentation and Advocacy fund. Depending on the organisational profile, applicants shall submit their proposals under one of the tiers below:

Funding amounts will be determined on the basis of the scope of the project proposal, taking into consideration factors such as geographical scope, capacity to absorb funding and costs of living in the concerned country.

Useful information, links, and tools

ILGA-Europe are open to support grants that have already documentation systems in place as well as those who want to set up a system for documentation of human rights violation cases. Applicants are free to choose the methodology for documenting violence cases. The experience of the ILGA-Europe work in previous years demonstrated that implementation of such projects allows selected applicants to develop data collection skills on cases of institutionalised or domestic violence cases in Europe and Central Asia. In case if an applicant requires additional information to decide on methodology here you can find useful information at https://www.huridocs.org/our-manuals/ or https://uwazi.io/ . You can also get in touch with ILGA-Europe to ask for specific tools.

Under this call ILGA-Europe will support documentation methods and reporting techniques which may include on-line reporting, face-to-face interviews or interviews by phone. ILGA-Europe will also support the publication of the report to be produced as a result of the project. At minimal, all projects should include the collection of data and the production of a report on the basis of the data collected.

Application forms shall include a description of the planned activities and of the chosen reporting methodology. Your proposals will be evaluated taking into account the capacity of your organisation to implement the project.

Information on the advocacy plans that your organisation intends to carry out on the basis of the produced report will be considered as an asset for your application. Organizations are also encouraged to demonstrate how this project will support the building of internal documentation skills in relation to documentation of situations around the case of institutionalised or domestic violence.

Information on your organisation’s plans to sustain in the long term the reporting and monitoring processes put in place thanks to the grant will be considered as an asset for your application.

ILGA-Europe’s staff remains available to facilitate information exchange on methodological tools used by its successful applicants. You can also find information about most recent documentation projects at ILGA-Europe webpage.

Applications should define vocabulary clearly and use it consistently throughout their proposal and project. It is important to clearly identify the indicators you intend to use and how you will gather, classify and measure the information to be collected. For guidance see HURIDOCS and UNHR sources.

Eligibility criteria

All applications will be assessed based on the following criteria

• Under this Call, the maximum duration of projects cannot exceed 12 months and projects shall be completed on or before December 31, 2023. Proposed minimum duration of projects is 8 months

• ONLY applications from LGBTI organisations in the European region and Central Asia[2] are eligible. A list of the eligible countries can be found here
• The totals of the budget should fall into one of tiers described above  
• The submitted application should concentrate on documentation of ONE type of violence: institutionalised OR domestic. Applications including both will be considered as ineligible
• Documentation of violence cases in the period of project implementation (2023) as well as cases happened in 2021 and 2022.

The selected applications should:

• Provide a clear methodology and outline what the objectives, added-value and expected outcomes are;
• Allow for the documentation of new evidence on LGBTI discriminatory practices in documentation;
• Enhance data collection skills on violence cases against LGBTI communities;
• Clearly indicate the language of the final product (advocacy report) and other outputs;

The deadline for the applications submission is 15 November 2022, 23.59 CET (Brussels time). Decisions on grants awarded will be communicated in December 2022.

Due to capacity and funding limitations NO applications from outside Europe and Central Asia, or submitted after the deadline will be accepted.

You can submit your application in English or ask any questions to ILGA-Europe’s Senior Programmes and Policy Officer Boris Balanețkii: boris@ilga-europe.org.

[1] “domestic violence” means all acts of violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering, that occur within the family or domestic unit, irrespective of biological or legal family ties, or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the offender shares or has shared a residence with the victim

[2] Countries-members of the Council of Europe as well as Russia, Belarus, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.