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According to the Anti-Discrimination Act, the Ombudsman/woman is the central equality body. In this capacity, the Office of the Ombudsman/woman has the responsibility to collect and analyse statistical data on discrimination concerning all of the grounds stated in the Anti-Discrimination Act, to inform the Croatian Parliament of the occurrences of discrimination on these grounds in his/her annual report (and, when required, special reports), to conduct surveys concerning discrimination, to give opinions and recommendations, and to suggest appropriate legal and strategic solutions to the Government of the Republic of Croatia.
The annual report is based on complaints received, fieldwork, research and data collected from several hundred stakeholders, including public authorities, civil society organisations, trade unions, employers, universities, churches, religious organisations and many others. Monitoring of discrimination and equality issues happens throughout the year, on the basis of receiving direct complaints from citizens, initialising the Ombudsman’s own proceedings and cooperation with stakeholders.
In the annual report, the Ombudsman provides an analysis and assessment of the situation regarding the protection and promotion of equality. As the Ombudsman is a national equality body, data on all 17 protected grounds under the Croatian Anti-Discrimination Act are included. The report also contains joint statistics from three special ombuds institutions that include information about gender of complainants, grounds, areas and structure of entities that the complaint was directed against. It also contains a comprehensive overview of the types of complaints received from citizens, along with descriptions of the most prominent cases and the outcome of the Ombudsman’s work on the subject.
The report is presented to the national parliament and contains numerous recommendations on how to advance the level of protection of human rights and equality. The government has the opportunity to give feedback on the recommendations and content, and the report is available for public use, its findings being regularly reported widely by the media.
Pučka pravobraniteljica (Ombudsman of the Republic of Croatia)info@ombudsman.hr