Campaign “Not normal?! – Stop ethnic profiling”

Organisation

Civil society organisations Amnesty International Vlaanderen, JES, Liga voor Mensenrechten, Minderhedenforum, Uit De Marge, Ligue des Droits Humains and Mouvement Contre le Racisme, l’Antisémitisme et la Xénophobie, and activist Yassine Boubout.

Start and end date

Start date: 10 June 2020.

End date: 31 December 2021 (with a possible extension of the campaign).

Scope

National.

Target group(s)

• The general population.
• People with a minority background.
• The police.
• Policymakers.

Funding

In 2019, the Foundation Open Society Institute awarded Amnesty International Vlaanderen vzw a grant totalling USD 208,759.00.

Objectives

• Increase awareness about the harmful impact of ethnic profiling.
• Provide concrete recommendations to policymakers and the police to tackle ethnic profiling.
• Empower people with a minority background by building rights awareness.

Outputs

• Campaign on social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) and the world wide web.
• A set of recommendations for policymakers.
• Infographics.
• Release of a short movie ‘Bad Apples’.
• Educational package about ethnic profiling.

Description

The ‘Not Normal?! – Stop Ethnic Profiling’ campaign aims to change mindsets and policy. It puts ethnic profiling on the agenda of politicians and the police, by advocating for concrete measures. In addition, it makes the public aware of why ethnic profiling is discriminatory and, moreover, inefficient. The campaign also informs people who experience ethnic profiling about their rights and emphasises that ethnic profiling is ‘Not Normal?!’.

The project has four main long-term objectives, and several short-term objectives.

1. Policymakers acknowledge ethnic profiling and adopt measures to counter it.
   • Associated activities include advocacy meetings with parliamentarians, local politicians and the police, and international human rights bodies.  
2. Police experiment with data collection and address ethnic profiling in their training and daily operations.
   • Associated activities include a campaign with powerful information for key police officers that encourages them to translate what they have learned into concrete measures.
3. De-normalise ethnic profiling, and raise awareness about its consequences and ways to challenge it in affected communities. Associated activities include consulting with stakeholders and developing and distributing materials (leaflets, videos and training materials).
4. Raise awareness among the general public about the discriminatory nature and ineffectiveness of ethnic profiling and ways to improve safety.
   • Associated activities consist of consulting on what information needs to be distributed and providing the information through various channels.

Critical success factors

• Participation of different stakeholders, in particular in the development of materials.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

The project involves several consultation sessions in which stakeholders have their say on what is needed and in what form. The project aims to involve people who are affected by ethnic profiling in consultations to obtain their input on training and communication methods. This increases their active participation and strengthens the network and community that are working on this issue.

Monitoring and evaluation

A coordinator guides the process and harmonises the efforts of the partners. The partners meet regularly to discuss the progress of the project. These monitoring meetings are used to keep track of the activities carried out to achieve the short-term objectives and to check if any adaptations need to be made. At every meeting, lessons are learned; this allows the project partners to proceed more logically. At the end of the project, project partners will hold an evaluation meeting to discuss all the activities and objectives and assess the impact of the project.

Publicly available contact details

Stop Etnisch Profileren – Contact (stopethnicprofiling.be)