Belgium: Rise in Dating App Ambushes Targeting LGBTQIA+ People, Advocacy Groups Warn

A report by ILGA-Europe points to a rise in homophobic and transphobic violence in Belgium, marked in particular by a growing number of ambushes set up through dating apps.

Just 14%. That's the share of LGBTI people assaulted in Belgium who actually report it to police, according to ILGA-Europe's 2026 annual review covering the year 2025. A figure that, on its own, hints at how much larger the real scale of the problem likely is.

The report specifically flags a rise in ambushes arranged through dating apps: a profile created purely to lure a victim, a meeting set up, then an assault that was never meant to be anything else from the start.

Some cases have already reached the courts. A trial over an ambush staged in Brussels opened in April, ending in convictions for two defendants in May. In November, a 31-year-old man was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for assaulting a man at a gay cruising spot.

Taken together, these individual cases sketched out in the annual report point to something bigger than a single incident: a repeating method that exploits the vulnerability already built into meeting someone arranged online, in a context where victims are often already hesitant to turn to police.