16 Days of Activism: �Forgotten Femicide� Gathering

Under the auspices of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Croatian Women Network organizes the �Forgotten Femicide� commemorative gathering, to be held in Zagreb, November 23, 2006.

The event will take place at Dubravka Rd, the site where the Magda Herucina was executed, the last woman from Zagreb that was burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft.

Suzana Kulovic (The Political Discourse of the Forgotten Femicide); Neva Tolle (The Charges and the Records from one Trial in the Process against Kata Cankovica); Bojana Genov (Radio Vatican, 27. 2. 2006. The 3rd International Seminar �Dominicans and the Inquisition) are expected to speak at the gathering, while Ankica Lepej will read her poem �Witness of the Faith�.

The media are invited to the event, and the proceedings will be filmed by 4YTV. The footage will be distributed, as internet video streaming, to the target groups such as women groups and other NGOs in Croatia and abroad, political parties, state institutions, EU and UN offices, and other legal entities.
Oneworld.net

WOMEN IN THE BALKANS

European Feminist Initiative for Another Europe, IFE-EFI gathered on September 18th-19th in premises of The European Parliament in Brussels about 60 feminist activists from The Balkans and the other European regions and some members of the peace movement on a conference �Security in Europe for Whom? Which Europe do we want �.
Participant from Croatia were Rada Bori�, Women's Network Croatia coordinator Bojana Genov, Biljana Ka�i� and Nela Pamukovi�.

... Further more the participants outlined the situation of sexual and reproductive rights of women across Europe and linked its deterioration with among others the growing influence and privileged status of the church given by the state and promoted in the Constitutional Treaty of the EU. They stressed that separation of the church from the state and promoting a secular Europe should be one of the main priorities of the European politics and concluded that EU should create policies that affirm the women�s reproductive rights, the freedom of choice over her body and the right to free abortion as a women�s human right and an issue of security . . .

Show-business feminism

ZAGREB - The case of a 32-year old Tanja Tomi�, an RTL reporter who recently admitted to being abused by her husband Mislav Margeti�, seven years her junior, since the first day of marriage, stirred up spirits and re-opened the question of battered women staying with their abusive partners.

Still, the RTL anchor is a public personality, and should not have, according to Sanja Sarnavka from the women�s NGO B.a.B.e. publicly stated that she loves her husband. This is said to have undermined all the awareness campaigns of the organisation designed to protect women throughout Croatia.

- This case involves a public person, and is as such impossible for me to justify or understand. She should borrow literature with accounts of such �big and passionate� love, often ending in murder. I cannot feel for her, but I can tell her to come to me and I shall submit to her real-life examples, similar to her, that ended tragically - says Sanja Sarnavka of women�s organisation B.a.B.e.

She adds that there is something in the way such women were brought up that has turned them into masochists that keep blaming themselves. Public prosecutor should be involved, with a more stringent punitive action on Margeti� and mandatory therapy for Tanja Tomi�.

Comment by Bojana Genov, Women's Network coordinator

�I cannot feel for her�, says Sanja Sarnavka, B.a.B.e. NGO president, in answer to the question of Jutarnji list on why do the abused women stay with their partners and in comment of the RTL anchor lady�s statement on how she still loves her abusive husband.

The fact that many do not understand the dynamics that keep an abused woman in her trap of violence and the fact that most believe there is a legitimate reason for her exposure to it, constitute a mechanism that gives license to equanimity, not only of individuals, but of institutions legally bound to report and sanction violence.

When a prominent feminist joins this circle of ignorance and judgement, everyone can stay sedate, no one needs feel guilty, and the society heaves a sigh of relief. A woman is beaten up because she is stupid and unresponsive to obvious facts, so it somehow stands to reason she will be punished. The woman was abused because she obviously likes it, so how can we feel compassion towards her. The fact that she is stupid was amply demonstrated by the fact that she does not understand and has �thrown to the wind all the awareness campaigns by the Organization in the effort to protect women across Croatia�. She shows herself to be irresponsible in view of these campaigns� effects, placing them in jeopardy by her public declaration of love for her abuser.

As a public person, she ought to show more responsibility to B.a.B.e. campaigns, is the essence of Sarnavka�s message to the public, showing that her relationship to women, bereft of understanding and compassion, is the measure of their involvement in the workings of her organization.

Procedure for Preparation of National Gender Equality Policy
Not Serious Enough

The Government�s Gender Equality Office finished, at the start of last week, the Draft-National Policy for Promotion of Gender Equality 2006-2010. The draft was submitted to the Working Group for preparation of the document, with a review deadline of three days only, while simultaneously being submitted to all administrative bodies and local commissions. This action provoked strong protests with all involved participants.
... The Croatian Women Network also reacted to the procedure of preparation of the National Policy. Bojana Genov, CWN Coordinator and member of the Working Group, sent an open letter to the Gender Equality Office and the Vice-President of the Government Jadranka Kosor.

CWN considers the fact that the Gender Equality Office sent the Draft to the administrative bodies prior to the Working Group presenting its opinion on the document totally unacceptable and questioned the rationale of setting such a short deadline for comments and approximation of positions in the Working Group.

�The hinted urgency is totally unsuited, having in mind that only five meetings of the Working Group were held, with over five months passing between sessions 4 and 5. The treatment of a body established by the Government points out at the fact that NGOs are used just a decoration for the system�, states CWN.

When preparing such a document, public debate is necessary not only to provide for its quality, but also to raise public sensibility on the issue. Therefore, CWN proposed a longer deadline, at least till the end of June 2006, for comments and the public debate that would include the obligation to publish the draft-Document on the web.

Article on One World Southeast Europe

Positioning paper on The Catholic Church
and it�s interference and violation of women�s human rights
in Croatia

WNC-a Feminist Political Network

Croatian Women's Network (WNC) is a Feminist Political Network of 47 women�s organisations across Croatia who works towards gender equality through advocacy, protection and promotion of women�s human rights. Croatian Women�s Network work to change the social and political status of women through strengthening women�s organising in the process of democratisation of the society, inspiring public debates on gender equality, feminist approaches to democracy, and deconstructing with our broad-range of activities the patriarchal ideology as a dominant social structure in Croatia. From feminist analyses WNC have come to understand that the institutionalized patriarchal system of oppression, subordination and marginalization is based on the domination of men over women (...)

Religious morality, an androcentric invention, keeps sustaining the tradition of women�s discrimination. The Catholic Church's influence on the state secular matters means that numerous discriminatory practices still exist and they run contrary to the rights of women who are living in a European, democratic and equal society which Croatian society strives to be (...)

Women's day 2006.

Photo album 2006 - 1 Photo album 2006 - 2

Photo album 2005

REPORT ON WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS IN 2005

Positive shifts in women's human rights have been noticed in the area of women's protection against violence � the beginning of implementation of the National Strategy for Protection Against Domestic Violence for 2005 � 2007 and passing of the Protocol on Response to Domestic Violence.

The establishment of the Coordination for the Realisation of the Constitutional Principle of Gender Equality, showed willingness for cooperation between the Office for Gender Equality, Ombudswoman for Gender Equality, the Gender Equality Committee of the Croatian Parliament and the Croatian member of the CEDAW Committee of the UN with the Women's Network Croatia as the dominant part of the organised women's movement in Croatia.

The most blatant violations of women's human rights are happening within the framework of the educational system, which does not include sexual education or education on gender equality. The textbooks themselves are overflowing with discriminatory patterns and stereotypes in direct collision with the obligations of Croatia as a signatory of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Complete report

Web Clipping from OneWorld Southeast Europe

� Equal Access to Sports Regardless of Sexual Orientation

� Maja Miles Journalism Award

� Invisible Barriers for Women in Political Parties

� Report by Women's Network Croatia on lack of transparency, public appearances and the activities of the Bureau of Associations established by the Government to pursue professional and other activities related to creation of conditions for partner relations and inter-sectoral cooperation with the NGO sector

� Sex Education in the Schools

� Sex Education without Human Rights Perspective?

Office: B. Viduli� 28, 51550 Mali Lo�inj, Croatia
Phone: (+385) (0)51 233 650 Fax: (+385) (0)51 233 567
e mail: koordinatorica@zenska-mreza.hr
Contact: Bojana Genov, coordinator
Cell phone: 385 98 215 858

Procedure for Preparation of National Gender Equality Policy Not Serious Enough

Positioning paper on The Catholic Church and it�s interference and violation of women�s human rights in Croatia

Procedure for Preparation of National Gender Equality Policy
Not Serious Enough

Positioning paper on The Catholic Church
and it�s interference and violation of women�s human rights
in Croatia