Wearetolerant.com – a platform for online reporting of hate crimes and homophobia
Wearetolerant.com – a platform for online reporting of hate crimes and homophobia
In 2015 The GLAS Foundation started the platform Wearetolerant.com. in order to help people who have experienced or have witnessed homophobic or transphobic hate crimes share and report what had transpired. The collected information is presented to the proper authorities so as to improve the treatment of LGBT people.
The initiative aims to increase public consciousness regarding the seriousness of homophobic hate crimes, to monitor their types and scope within Bulgaria, as well as to encourage people to report these incidents. On the basis of all the signals to the platform between May and October 2017, the GLAS Foundation published a report in early 2018, according to which the most frequent type of incident, reported by people with non-traditional sexual orientation or gender identity in Bulgaria, are threats. Data shows that among the public places that have the highest amount of registered threats are schools, homes and bars.
The Wearetolerant.com platform was created as a part of the #WeAreTolerant campaign against hate crimes, which was created with the financial support of the PlanetRomeo Foundation in 2015. Its purpose is to increase public condemnation of these acts of violence, as well as to bring forth the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to all sections of the penal code that concern hate crimes.
Through this campaign, GLAS brought forth more attention and awareness to the national danger of this type of violence. Presently, the GLAS Foundation is in the process of preparing a much more encompassing informational project aimed at the general public, concerning the same topic. It is scheduled to start in 2019.