Croatia Policy Brief 2018 Zagreb Pride LGBTIQ NGO (original) (raw)

Related papers

Violence against lesbians, gays and bisexuals in Croatia: research report

This is the first research conducted within the LGB community in Croatia which investigated the extent and structure of violence against the LGB persons due to their sexual orientation. The goals of the research are as follows: 1. informing Croatian LGB community about their member’s life experiences with homophobic violence, 2. drawing attention of the public and the relevant state institutions to the prevalence of the homophobic violence and to the need of its better legal regulations and 3. raising awareness of the police, psychotherapists, social and medical workers, e.g. everyone responsible for offering help to the victims of violence on the issue of violence against the LGB persons. The research was conducted in late 2005 at the sample of 202 persons from the LGB population in Zagreb, Rijeka and Osijek. It became apparent that every second lesbian, gay and bisexual person in Croatia had suffered violence due to her/his sexual orientation in the last 4 years. Almost 40% of par...

Violence against lesbians, gays and bisexuals in Croatia

2006

This is the first research conducted within the LGB community in Croatia which investigated the extent and structure of violence against the LGB persons due to their sexual orientation. The goals of the research are as follows: 1. informing Croatian LGB community about their member’s life experiences with homophobic violence, 2. drawing attention of the public and the relevant state institutions to the prevalence of the homophobic violence and to the need of its better legal regulations and 3. raising awareness of the police, psychotherapists, social and medical workers, e.g. everyone responsible for offering help to the victims of violence on the issue of violence against the LGB persons. The research was conducted in late 2005 at the sample of 202 persons from the LGB population in Zagreb, Rijeka and Osijek. It became apparent that every second lesbian, gay and bisexual person in Croatia had suffered violence due to her/his sexual orientation in the last 4 years. Almost 40% of participants experienced insults or swearing in that period, 20% of them suffered threats with physical violence, while 14% of participants suffered physical violence. The violence had mostly been committed by the persons who were unknown to the victims, either in open or enclosed public areas. As the numerous studies before this, our study showed as well that the experience of violence was related to several symptoms of the psychological problems. The persons who experienced assaults and limitation of freedom due to their sexual orientation from 2002 up to the end of 2005 show more anxiety, depression and lower self-esteem that the persons who had not experienced violence and those who experienced verbal violence, and feel that belonging to the LGB community is important for defining their own identity. It also appeared that the social environment of the victims of violence knew better about their sexual orientation than of those LGB persons who did not experience violence. Even 84% of participants are aware of more than one case of a physical violence against an unknown to them LGBT person due to his/her sexual orientation. 56% of participants in the research have one or more close LGBT persons who were victims of physical violence. People whose several friends or partners were attacked show more depression and anxiety than the others. When it comes to belonging to the LGB population, we noticed that a lesbian, gay or bisexual person who is more open about his/her views on homo/bisexuality has a higher level of a personal self-esteem. The results have also shown that less anxious persons are those who do not conceal his/her sexual orientation in order to avoid unease, discrimination or violence. At the end of the report we gave basic recommendations to the institutions in charge of helping the victims of violence as well as LGBT organisations on prevention and reduction of primary and secondary victimization due to sexual orientation.

UNDP Report: Being LGBTI in Bosnia and Herzegovina

UNDP Report: Being LGBTI in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2017

Report author: Sasa Gavric This report is part of a sub-regional project "Being LGBTI in Eastern Europe" which is implemented by UNDP and financed by USAID. It has been developed based on several events with institutional stakeholders and civil society organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016, conversations with representatives of civil society organizations and relevant institutions, researches and desk reviews of published literature. The report covers the developments and activities until 31 December 2016. All changes and activities after this date are not covered by the report. The report is available in English and languages of people of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian).

Homophobia and Violence Against Gays and Lesbians in Slovenia

Revija za sociologiju 39(4): 267-281, 2008

The authors present and discuss empirical findings from various research projects on homophobic violence in Slovenia. Existing research on violence against gays and lesbians shows a high level of verbal, physical and sexual violence experienced by gays and lesbians and at the same time a low recognition of such violence in society. According to public opinion and the research results, Slovenia is still homophobic society. Violence is an all-pervading element of everyday life of gays and lesbians in Slovenia. More than half of respondents in the research on everyday life of gays and lesbians, for example, reported that they were at least once a victim of some form of violence due to sexual orientation. Most frequently homophobic violence happens in public space. For this reason, the first two parts of the paper discuss various forms of violence in school settings in particular, and in public space in general. In the third part of the paper, the authors discuss another form of violence, for which they argue to be the most problematic and probably the hardest to deal with. This is a socially hidden and invisible violence that arises from heteronormativity and the so-called heteronormative panopticon and which takes many forms, from constant fear of being “disclosed”, of being victim of violence, to self- violence accompanied by internalised homophobia.

Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia: Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics

This volume combines empirically oriented and theoretically grounded reflections upon various forms of LGBT activist engagement to examine how the notion of intersectionality enters the political context of contemporary Serbia and Croatia. By uncovering experiences of multiple oppression and voicing fear and frustration that accompany exclusionary practices, the contributions to this book seek to reinvigorate the critical potential of intersectionality, in order to generate the basis for wider political alliances and solidarities in the post-Yugoslav space. The authors, both activists and academics, challenge the systematic absence of discussions of (post-)Yugoslav LGBT activist initiatives in recent social science scholarship, and show how emancipatory politics of resistance can reshape what is possible to imagine as identity and community in post-war and post-socialist societies. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of history and politics of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav states, as well as to those working in the fields of political sociology, European studies, social movements, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, and queer theory and activism. This is a brilliant, timely and engaged book, making an original contribution to the growing field of LGBTQ studies. It is extremely rare for a book to address intersecting oppressions so explicitly, focus so strongly on a particularly important geographical space or offer such a rich mix of standpoints, voices and writing styles. The explicit concern with combining academic, research and activist endeavours is carried off with aplomb. This volume is likely to leave a lasting impression on all who read it. Paul Stubbs, Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia

The Prohibition of Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and its Protection in Serbia

In Serbia, any kind of discrimination is prohibited by the Constitution, but sexual orientation is not explicitly listed as a special ground. According to the Constitution, everybody is equal before the Constitution and the law and has the right to equal legal protection without discrimination. Any kind of discrimination, direct or indirect, on any ground is prohibited, especially on the grounds of race, sex, nationality, social background, birth, religion, political or other opinion, financial condition, culture, language, age, mental or physical disabilities. In 2009 the Serbian National Assembly passed the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination, which listed sexual orientation and gender identity as separate and specific grounds for the prohibition of discrimination. This Act regulates various protection mechanisms, some of which are completely new in the Serbian legal system, such as the institution of the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality. However, the LGBT population in Serbia still suffer from different forms of discrimination and violence. For example, many rights in the fields of family and inheritance law are not recognized to homosexuals and some human rights and fundamental freedoms guaranted by the Constitution are not fully applied. This topic is still a taboo. The Serbian society is very traditional and is seemingly not ready to accept the changes ocurring in the social reality and legal systems of many European and non-European countries, even though non-discrimination and the respect for human rights are proclaimed by many European and UN conventions ratified by Serbia and prescribed by domestic law. Moreover, there are many judgements of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that had a signifcant impact on the legislative and regulative measures in many European countries. Serbia is a member state of the Council of Europe and is obliged to respect the decisions of the European Court of Human Rigths. In this paper, the author presents some of the systems of legal protection against discrimination according to the positive law in Serbia and some legal cases dealing with discrimination of the LGBT population, especially the case law of ECtHR.

POLICY MAKES A FAMILY: CROATIAN LGBTQ MOVEMENT AND THE STRUGGLE FOR FOSTERING RIGHTS

Mapping LGBTQ Spaces and Places. A Changing World, 2022

As the recent conservative backlash against gay and lesbian fostering in Croatia shows, family is imagined as a domain of invisible, desexualized straightness, queerness within familiar contexts causes anxiety (Hicks 2011). Same-sex couples are met with suspicion as categories of “gay” or “lesbian” conventionally don’t overlap with categories such as “parenting” or “family” (ibid). This chapter documents case of Ivo Šegota and Mladen Kožić, a gay couple that filed two lawsuits against Ministry of Demographics, Family, Youth and Social Policy because they were rejected as adopters (before assessment) and foster carers (despite fitting the criteria) in 2019. While fostering was granted to the couple in 2020, I argue that this outcome doesn’t necessarily challenge existing definitions of family nor promises prompt access to adoption. I will analyze these court cases in the first part of the chapter. The second part will be dedicated to the couple’s claim to family – I argue that gayness is the only marked category, and classed notion of parenting is framed as simply universally good parenting by loving and well-informed individuals, self-conscious and reflexive foster carers (Hicks 2011; Taylor 2009).