"Fifty percent of the female population lives with some form of violence. These are no longer statistics by women's groups but statistics released by the UN that one in three women will experience some form of violence during their lifetime. The type of violence varies, depending on country and context, but what is common is that women are abused just because they are women," the coordinator of the campaign, Rada Boric, said.
The organisers of the campaign in Croatia said that last year about a dozen women were killed by their husbands or partners.
One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history. The campaign was launched on Valentine’s Day 2012 and is marked by women's rights groups in more than 200 countries. This year's theme is the exploitation of women and global solidarity.
Boric said that the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence has not been ratified by Croatia and that preparing a new bill without the convention will not help improve the situation with violence against women.
She underscored that all countries around Croatia have ratified the Convention. "There is a reason why Croatia has not ratified it. That would mean that they would have to adhere to obligations and financially support activities to combat violence against women," she added.
Sanja Cesar of CESI said, "We ask the government and the prime minister to ratify the Convention, as he promised last year, and to do so urgently and to begin applying those standards that protect women and to ensure that they can live safely and happily in this country."
Disabled women are faced with a dual problem, Marica Miric of the Alliance of Disabled Persons of Croatia said, because they often cannot even report these incidents and the perpetrators exploit this fact.