"Animus Association" Foundation

Animus Association Foundation is partnering in the international projectт “SupportVOC”, together with KMOP (Greece), CESIE (Italy), the University of Barselona (Spain), HFC (Cyprus).The Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime was adopted on 25 October 2012 and entered into force on 15 November 2012, with the EU Member States having to implement the provisions into their national laws by 16 November 2015. The Directive states that Member States must ensure access for victims and their family members to general victim support and specialist support, in accordance with their needs (Art 8). However, there are still eight Member States that have yet to establish the generic victim support services required by Article 8 of the directive, among which are Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus.

From the victim support viewpoint the specification of minimum standards is of fundamental importance. At the moment, in Greece, Italy and Bulgaria there are support services offered for certain types of victims, such as victims of trafficking, victims of domestic violence/abuse etc. The limited range of support services leave out a considerable number of victims without access to victim support services. Moreover there is no proper monitoring of the services and uniformity in victims’ assistance across the country. Spain on the other hand, has established generic victim support services since 1995.

In order to address the above-mentioned gap, the SupportVoC project seeks to contribute to the promotion and protection of rights of Victims of Crime (VoC) in Spain, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus. Through an analysis of the state of the art of the European and national legal frameworks regarding the rights and protection of victims of crime and the implementation of Generic Victim Support Services (GVSS), as well as an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Spanish system, the project will develop a model and Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) for GVSS, adaptable to different national contexts and to be implemented in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus, thus contributing to the effective application of EU law on rights of Victims of Crime, specifically Directive 2012/29/EU. To further achieve these objectives SupportVoC will also promote the cooperation between authorities and organisations coming into contact with victims of crime and thus support the implementation of the model and SOPs for GVSS and contribute to ensuring a comprehensive protection of VoC.