Welcome to the Official web site of the Croatian Gender Equality Ombudsperson !

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 Law adopted also in 2003 for the first time (Official Gazette 116/03).

In 2008, Croatian Parliament adopted a new Gender Equality Law (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.

October 1st 2003, Ms Gordana Lukač Koritnik became the first Gender Equality Ombudsperson appointed by the Croatian Parliament. Here is her short CV:

Gordana Lukač Koritnik was born in Zagreb, where she attended high school and graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1974. Most of her professional career up to 2003, when she was appointed Ombudsperson, she practiced law as an attorney in private practice. Her father, brother and sister are all attorneys as well.

In her legal practice, Gordana Lukač Koritnik often represented women victims of domestic violence and other cases from the area of family and labor law related to human rights and gender equality. 

In 1995, she accepted the invitation of the Women's Human Rights Group B.a.B.e., which was in search of legal experts who would provide direct legal aid for women, as well as an expert for analysis of laws from gender perspective. This entailed learning about international gender equality mechanisms and protection and promotion of women's human rights. By educating herself and trying to pass on the knowledge to others in an environment lacking information about this broad aspect of human rights protection, Gordana Lukač Koritnik attended numerous important world-wide conferences and meetings, including annual sessions of the UN Commission for Women in New York and Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, the Council of Europe, Stability Pact and other global forums. She also took part in meetings of world-wide networks of NGOs dealing with human rights and gender equality. She was one of the authors of the first CEDAW shadow report, which was, along with the first regular report of the Croatian Government on the status of women in the Republic of Croatia, submitted to the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women by Croatian women's NGOs.

During her work at B.a.B.e. and other women's organizations (Center for Women War Victims, Autonomous Women's House Zagreb, Women's Studies), Gordana Lukač Koritnik initiated and managed several projects of legal analysis and monitoring of laws, writing legal drafts and amendments, analysis of court rulings, and participated in public debates and education about women's human rights and gender equality. She launched and managed an internationally acclaimed project SEELINE, which included comparative analysis of national legislations from gender perspective in 10 countries of Southeastern Europe and planning campaigns to improve and harmonize them with global standards. In the document accompanying its session in Geneva in 2003, the UN Commission for Human Rights declared SEELINE one of the two best projects on this issue in Europe.

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Although the Official web site of the Croatian Gender Equality Ombudsperson contains a lot of content concerning gender equality in Croatia, we can not  translate all of them into English. However, below this section you will find the section called Annual Reports, with translated annual reports the Gender Equality Ombudsperson has submitted to the Croatian Parliament so far. Annual Reports contain all the activities, initiatives, surveys, statistics and examplary case descriptions.

If you are interested in a specific area of the Office of the Gender Equality Ombudsperson's scope of work, please contact us by regular mail, phone, fax or e-mail and we'll be glad to answer your questions.

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

Address:  Pravobraniteljica za ravnopravnost spolova (Gender Equality Ombudswoman)
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