(Brussels 24 May) The EWL Vice-president, Rada Boric and the Croatian coordination for the EWL have arranged for the President of Croatia, Ivo Josipovic to receive representatives (Board members) of the European Women’s Lobby during their stay in Zagreb, for the EWL general assembly next week.
President Ivo Josipovi?, professor of law and modern music composer, is a well known advocate for human rights.
He marked International Women’s Day on 8 March 2012 by convening a national network of men leaders committed to fighting violence against women in Croatia. The network brought together the country’s top political leadership, from the Prime Minister to government ministers and members of Parliament to popular singers, actors and sportsmen for a discussion with leading women’s groups on the role that men can play in ending domestic violence.
Domestic violence affects as many as one in three families in Croatia, and 40 percent of citizens know at least one victim, according to recent research. In the past ten years in Croatia, 305 women were murdered, at least half at the hands of spouses or partners.
“As President of the Republic, but also as a husband and a father, I would like together with you – men holding top positions in the state – to influence changes in the concept of violent manhood as the ideal of true manhood,” said President Josipovi?. “Today we have gathered in order to send out a message to young men that to be a man does not mean to prove your superiority by violence. To be a man means to be brave, responsible and non-violent in interpersonal relations, and particularly in relations towards women.”
Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, was one of the participants in the Zagreb One Billion Rising campaign protest in Zrinjevac Park, and he said that a special responsibility lay with the male population, notably with male office-holders and other societal stakeholders to put an end on violence against women.
“We mustn’t turn a blind eye to violence. Violence corrodes society“, Josipovic said, among other things, during this event organised by women’s groups, members of European Women’s Lobby.
