Attacks on homeless performed by “youths after partying”

AS many as 38.3 per cent of attacks suffered by homeless people were carried out by very young men who were coming back after clubbing.

These are the facts shown in a new investigation carried out in Spain by the Hatento observatory to learn about hate crimes on homeless people, known as peniaphobia crimes.

The RAIS Foundation, in collaboration with six other entities, supported the report. The head of the Foundation, Begoña Pastor, indicated that the number of attacks performed by young people is very significant as they are usually attributed to neo-Nazi groups which, in fact, only represent 8.5 per cent of the total.

According to the report, the number of neo-Nazi attacks and incidents of humiliation of homeless people reached 7.3 per cent and these reached 28.4 per cent when performed by youths who had been partying.

Every five days, a homeless person dies in Spain, 27 per cent of these deaths are due to an attack.

One in three homeless people has been insulted or has received humiliating treatment while one in five has been attacked physically.

The report was conducted by interviewing almost 300 people with an average age of 43-years-old and an average stay in the streets of up to 51 months.

Only 15 of the 114 people who had been subjected to a hate crime had issued an official report and only eight out of the 47 who had been physically attacked did so (17 per cent). In the majority of cases (70 per cent), those attacked believed that they did not have the right to report it to the police.

The investigation also shows that in two out of three cases there are witnesses but in 68 per cent of the total cases, they decide not to intervene.