Author: Izabelė Švaraitė

On the 10^th of December, more than a hundred experts will gather in the National Human Rights Forum (NHRF) and discuss the most important human rights issues of Lithuania. This year The Office of the Equal Opportunity Ombudsperson invites society to talk, how to recognise disability hate crimes (DHC). Which, according to Berit Vegheim, a speaker at the NHRF, are specific and must be addressed as such. 

Ms. Vegheim is the Chair of the Norwegian Civil Rights foundation Stop Discrimination. She will virtually participate in a NHRF’s discussion “Why are there “no” hate crimes against persons with disabilities?”.

Conventionally, hate crimes are crimes that are motivated by hatred towards a minority or vulnerable social group. Persons with disabilities are not necessarily openly despised, they may be seen as easier targets. So why do crimes against persons with disabilities fall into this category?

What has to be recognized is that disabled persons are selected and attacked because they belong to a target group, that have traditionally been and still are perceived as inherently weak, inferior and misfits. Disabled people are attacked because of a physical impairment / disfigurement / characteristic which everyone can see: the way they talk, speak, walk, their appearance and conduct, etc. This triggers hostility. Actually, these are the categories that are widely despised in all cultures.

The misconception of vulnerability and hostility as contradictions fails to recognize that vulnerability, actual or perceived, does not rule out DHC. The perceived vulnerability itself triggers hostility by those who fear and / or despise people they consider to be weak, helpless, “stupid”, “retarded” or “mad”.

Why is it important to recognize crimes against persons with disabilities as hate crimes?

Actually, for the same reasons as for the other target groups – a person is attacked because of belonging to a despised group, which is more exposed to hatred than the rest of the population. That is why such crimes are called hate crimes.

People ask, is it really hate. It is a relevant question, which has been constantly debated in different countries and is related to different grounds. But today, as a lot of grounds have got protection against hate crimes in many European countries, it seems that the doubt about the motive primarily concerns disabled victims. Either way, doubt cannot justify the denial of legal protection and equality before the law.  

How to identify a disability-based hate crime?

How to identify any hate crime? These crimes are bias-motivated. And there are several important bias indicators regarding disability. They can also be found in the UK CPS list.

Firstly, there have often been previous incidents. For example, financial or sexual exploitation; making the person commit minor criminal offences such as shoplifting; using or selling the person’s medication; taking over the person’s accommodation to commit further offences such as taking / selling drugs, handling stolen goods, encouraging under-age drinking and sexual behaviour. Secondly, such opportunistic crimes become systematic – this is not a one-time incident. Befriending or grooming a person with a learning disability is a well known method to exploit someone. People from a criminal justice system think that these offenders are the victim’s friends but this type of behaviour is actually an abuse of someone’s loneliness, isolation, trust and faithfulness.

The incident or crime very often takes place in the victim’s home, including care home or institution,    burglary and property damage take place on a location related to disabled people. Perpetrators are often someone known by the victim: carers, acquaintances, or neighbours. One of the perpetrators may be another disabled person, exploited to get access to the victim. This person may or may not know the intentions of the other perps.

The other type of disability-based crime is false accusations. For instance, accusing a disabled person of being a paedophile, harassment or steeling.

And, of course, there are common indicators. Cruelty, humiliation, degrading treatment often relates to the nature of the disability. For example, blindfolding someone who is profoundly deaf, destroying mobility aids, giving false directions to a blind person, etc.

Hate speech against persons with disabilities is probably another thing that is not usually recognisable. What does indicate that a comment is disability-based hate speech?

As in the case with other target groups, hate speech can be identified by the intent to humiliate or degrade a person belonging to a protected social group. Such expressions are very often based on certain widespread stereotypes or negative characteristics of the target group, often it is name calling and appalling language. It should be easy to recognize hate speech against disabled people since different impairments are also very often used to humiliate and degrade non-disabled people.  

In fact, there are no other target group that experiences their characteristics being present in a daily language without anyone taking notice of the humiliation such expressions actually constitute. And this can explain why non-disabled people fail to recognize hate speech against disabled people despite their sensitivity to hate speech in general. People know what is racist or homophobic but not disablist. We often say that non-disabled people are “blind”, “deaf” or “Mongol”. This type of language is so common and meant to humiliate, degrade a person but no one takes notice. Try to call a white person a “nigger” and you will get a lot of reactions, even get harassed yourself. But you can call a person “deaf”, “dumb” or “Mongol” without anyone even noticing.

Persons with disability are sometimes seen as defenceless, they are being treated with pity and patronage. Why is this type of attitude towards people with disability harmful and derogatory?

It can be seen as part of the problem. No one likes to be met with pity and stereotypes. As long as disabled people are not met with the same respect as the non-disabled majority, they will be subject to treatment that degrades and humiliates them. As long as you are looked upon as weak, helpless and not able to take responsibility, you will get different treatment. And as long as you apply different treatment to persons with disabilities, it will be very difficult to achieve the acknowledgement of what can be called exploitation and hate crimes.

Are disability-based crimes easily recognised by Norwegian institutions?

No, there is still a misconception that people who are perceived to be weak cannot be victims of DHC. Although the Norwegian hate crime legislation includes disability as a ground for bias motivated crimes, in three years there has not been a single case registered as a disability hate crime.

The paternalistic view of disabled people as vulnerable and not targets of hate is so overwhelmingly internalized, that the police lacks the motivation to take necessary measures to ensure recognition and prosecution.

The court systematically fails to take bias motivation into account and insists upon the traditional explanation that the victim is a defenceless person instead. Since defencelessness also is among the aggravating circumstances, which leads to increased penalties, we experience very little concern from the criminal justice system to confront disablist hate crimes.

What is your advice to police and officers who want to do a better job at investigating DHC?

First of all, training. Police must undergo training on recognising what constitutes DHC according to the national legislation. DHC must be included in all measures taken to raise awareness about identifying and investigating hate crime. Real cases or constructed cases should be used as examples of all bias indicators.

The overall advice I can give is to take what we call the “skin colour test“. Whenever there is doubt about the motive of the crime against a disabled person, replace disability with another protected ground with which you’re more familiar (for example, skin colour, race, nationality, sexual orientation). Then ask, what would I have thought if this happened to a person, for instance, of non-white colour? Very often the answer is useful. In conclusion, we often use the phrase “You don’t see it before you believe it”. Not the opposite.

The discussion “Why are there “no” hate crimes against persons with disabilities?” will take place on 10^th of December, 4:45–6:00 pm EET at Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. Those who want to participate live has to register here. The discussion will also be broadcasted online (no registration needed for online viewers).

The article is a part of the projects “#NoPlace4Hate: Improving Institutional Response to Hate Speech in Lithuania” and „#HATEFREE: Improving the Norway’s and Lithuania’s Bilateral Cooperation in preventing hate speech and mainstreaming equal opportunities”. The “#NoPlace4Hate” is partially funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission (Project Agreement No. 875127 — LGKT_HS — REC-AG-2019 / REC-RRAC-RACI-AG-2019). The European Commission is not responsible for any possible usage of this information. The „#HATEFREE“ project is funded by EEA and Norway Grants.