Activists seek law changes strengthening abortion rights and curbing the rights of ‘kneelers’ – ultra-conservative men who pray in city squares against divorce and abortion – to hold their protests in public.
Press conference at the Women’s House.
The Association Autonomous Women’s House Zagreb, a women’s advocacy body in Croatia, on Tuesday urged the Croatian state to support women, and proposed changes to the criminal code improving women’s right to voluntarily terminate pregnancies and limiting the rights of men to pray against abortion in public.
“It is about applying and protecting the principles that the state accepted when it ratified the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and when it accepted the European acquis [the common body of EU legislation]”, Neva Tolle, advisor to the Autonomous Women’s House Zagreb, AZKZ, told the press conference.
She said the so-called “kneelers” – men who pray in public places against abortion and for a restoration of manliness – are creating a platform for the tolerance of violence and inequality of women and so invite society to discriminate against women.
BIRN has written about this initiative, which arose in ultra-conservative Catholic circles and gathers men who kneel and pray for “manliness” in city squares on the first Saturday of the month.
Tolle urged a quick reaction from the state. It is clear, she added, that the “kneelers” are connected to the harassment of women in front of hospitals who are exercising their legal right to an abortion, disrespecting the basic principles of equality according to which women should decide for themselves about all aspects of their lives, especially about their own bodies.
AZKZ sent the proposed law changes to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday. AZKZ lawyer Sanja Bezbradica Jelavic clarified that they propose adding a new article to the criminal code which would criminalise “Violation of a woman’s right to voluntary termination of pregnancy”, following the example of other countries, such as Spain and Germany.
The article would read: “Whoever interferes with the exercise of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy by harassing a woman with actions or behaviour that is unwanted, intrusive, offensive, intimidating, or represents mental or physical coercion …shall be punished with a prison sentence of one to three years”.
They also seek amendments to the Law on Public Assembly, providing a legal basis for state interference in the freedom of peaceful assembly. This would prohibit even peaceful gatherings and protests near hospitals that disturb the peace of patients.
Bezbradica Jelavic said: “Regardless of who is in power … these are topics that … have to do with gender-based violence and the prevention of violence against women”.
SOURCE: Balkan Insight, by Vuk Tesija, 9 July 2024. PHOTO: AZKZ.HR