Unfortunately, homophobic abuse is still something that we didn’t get over and every now and again new cases come up in the news from around the world in regards to this matter.

When we live in a big city like London or New York, it is very easy to go unnoticed and the crowd in general is a lot more varied in terms of style and freedom of expression.

In smaller towns, however, the story is very different.

Since everybody knows each other and it’s a lot more complicated to hide from the curious eyes of the gossiping and bored to death neighbours, LGBT people may face more discrimination just for the fact that they act different or look different. Research showed also that people who live in countryside areas are more unwilling to speak up and report the abuse.

Therefore any efforts made by the government to address this problem and raise social awareness and to stop discrimination in rural areas will be most definitely appreciated and will help to put end to acts of violence as well as the rate of suicide caused by this issue.

According to Pink News, two new short movies (we also have our own short movie! It even participated in Belgrade Mikro Amateur Film Festival, search for N.I.P.P.L.E!) are being produced in collaboration with the Avon and Somerset Police (Southwest England) and EACH (Educational Action Challenging Homophobia) in order to help people who have been target of abuse to step forward.

At the present time, at least 17% of the LGB interviewed by YouGov for Stonewall in UK have experienced a hate crime or incident in the last three years.

Two thirds of the people affected by these problems didn’t report it to anyone and this means that unless something is done and everybody puts a bit of effort into supporting these community it will continue happening.

Many people think that because the problem is not their own we can just close our eyes to it as if it never existed.

Nevertheless, one day it could be a family member of yours, a friend, a teacher or a neighbour that you didn’t even suspect had suffered a hate crime and then, in some occasions, the consequences could be drastic.

To read a first person a comment from a teenager who writes on the challenges of growing up gay in the countryside, click right here.

Somehow, I also came across this anti-homophobia commercial that made my eyes water. To watch it, click here and please share if you like it as every little help is a big help if we all get together!