About Us

Gender equality is one of the fundamental values of the constitutional order of the Republic of Croatia. In 2003, upon the proposal of the Croatian Government, the first Gender Equality Ombudsperson was appointed by the Croatian Parliament in accordance to the Gender Equality Act adopted in 2003 for the first time (Official Gazette 116/03).

In 2008, Croatian Parliament adopted a new Gender Equality Act (Official Gazette 82/08) according to which the Gender Equality Ombudsperson performs the tasks of an independent body in charge of combating discrimination in the field of gender equality.

The responsibilities of the ombusperson for gender equality include:

1. receiving complaints from any natural persons or legal entities regarding discrimination in the area of gender equality;

2. providing assistance to natural and legal persons who filed a complaint of sexual discrimination when instituting legal proceedings;

3. taking steps to investigate individual complaints prior to the legal proceedings;

4. conducting, with the consent of the parties involved, a mediation process with a possibility to reach an out-of court settlement;

5. collecting and analysing statistical data on cases of sexual discrimination;

6. conducting independent surveys concerning discrimination, publishing independent reports and exchanging available information with corresponding European bodies.

The Gender Equality Ombudswoman acts in an independent manner, monitors the enforcement of the Gender Equality Law and other regulations on gender equality and reports to the Croatian Parliament at least once a year.

The Gender Equality Ombudsperson invastigates cases of infringement of the principle of gender equality, cases of discrimination against individuals or groups of individuals by public bodies, units of local or regional self-government or other bodies with public authority, by employees of these bodies or other legal or natural persons.

Anybody have the right to address the Gender Equality Ombudsperson on account of any infringements of the Gender Equality Law regardless of whether he or she has suffered direct injury from such infringement, or is filing a complaint in somebody's name, provided that the injured party is not expressly opposed.

 

Although the Official web site of the Croatian Ombudsperson for Gender Equality contains a lot of content concerning gender equality in Croatia, we can not  translate all of them into English. However, we translated Annual Reports the Gender Equality Ombudsperson has submitted to the Croatian Parliament so far (2003-2009) and summaries of Annual Reports from 2010 forward. Annual Reports contain all the activities, initiatives, surveys, statistics and examplary case descriptions.

 

The Office of the Gender Equality Ombudsperson can be contacted by regular mail, phone, fax or e-mail:

Address:  Pravobraniteljica za ravnopravnost spolova (Ombudswoman for Gender Equality)
Preobraženska 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia  

Phone: +385 1 48 48 100  Fax: +385 1 48 44 600  

Working hours: 8.30 a.m. – 4.30 p.m. 

E-mail: ravnopravnost(at)prs.hr

Web: www.prs.hr