One issue I am passionate about preventing is the hate crime directed at members of our community with learning disabilities.
Earlier this month I hosted Dimensions UK in the Houses of Parliament, to mark Hate Crime Awareness Week.
I am supporting Dimensions UK’s I’m With Sam campaign to end learning disability hate crime.
Sam, who has a learning disability or autism, recounts the stories of real people, whose testimonies bear witness to the horror of hate crime perpetrated against particularly vulnerable people.
It is abhorrent that some of the most vulnerable people in our society are still being frequently abused, even in this day and age.
Hate crime of any kind is not acceptable. Learning disability and autism hate crime can have a devastating impact on victims and their families, yet is appallingly still all too common with a recent survey suggesting that three quarters had been subject to it.
Dimensions UK have an eight-point plan to tackle learning disability hate crime, including changing the law to make disability hate a crime online as well, and separating hate statistics into learning disability, autism and other disabilities.
Learning disability hate crime is any criminal offence which is perceived (either by the victim or anyone else) to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s disability or perceived disability.
Dimensions UK recently published new data on the experience of learning disability hate crime, highlighting levels of prevalence of hate crime targeting people with a learning disability or autism.
The victims of hate crime are frequently left feeling vulnerable, powerless, depressed and less comfortable leaving the house.
Compared with other forms of hate crime, learning disability hate crime is under-reported as victims are not aware of how or to whom they should report such incidents.
This issue is particularly important to me and I am pleased to be a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dyslexia & Other Specific Learning Difficulties.
For further information, please visit: www.dimensions-uk.org/imwithsam