Representatives of the civil initiative opposing the Istanbul Convention on combating domestic violence and violence against women handed over their petition containing 377,635 signatures in favour of a referendum to revoke the Convention to the Parliament on Wednesday.
In spite of various obstructions during collecting the signatures, the initiative managed to overcome all the barriers, said Kristina Pavlovic of the civil initiative.
The group said they have collected enough signatures, more than 10 percent of the electorate required to call the referendum.
Pavlovic added that the referendum on revoking the Convention is expected in autumn this year.
The Istanbul Convention, ratified in the Croatian parliament in April this year, created divisions in public, with conservative groups and politicians criticising the document.
In order to dissuade critics, the government had attached an interpretative statement to the document, once again clarifying all the points of contention, which was passed as well, in spite of opposition Social Democrat MPs requesting its removal.
The conservative-backed initiative is opposing the Istanbul Convention because they fear that implementing the convention would require national legislation to recognise a third gender, and possibly redefine marriage.
“Regardless of the referendum outcome… we have shown that we have raised public awareness of the Istanbul Convention and gender ideology,” she said.
When asked to comment on the criticism that “gender ideology” does not exist, Pavlovic said that the recent memo from the Education Minister Blazenka Divjak, where, according to Pavlovic, the minister asked school principals to properly treat children who have changed their gender or who wished to choose their own gender identity, was proof that they were right and that gender ideology was being introduced in Croatia.
Education ministry sent last week a set of instructions to schools and high education institutions to issue diplomas with a new name to those persons who changed their sex or their gender identity after they had completed their education.
“Considering that there is an undeniable legal obligation for education institutions to issue diplomas or certificates with new information to those who have changed their sex or their gender identity, but regulations defining the process of issuing said documents did not exist, the Ministry has, in cooperation with the Administration Ministry, created the instructions,” the Ministry said, Vecernji List daily reported last Wednesday.
Pavlovic said she hoped that educating the Croatian public on the topic would make it more difficult to introduce the gender ideology which, she said, was hidden in the text of the Convention.
This initiative has made it easier for all future initiatives to collect signatures in Croatian cities, because the Constitutional Court decided that local authorities cannot decide on what is and is not constitutional, and that referendum initiatives should not have to pay for or require permits for collecting signatures from the local governments, she said.
They were collecting signatures for two weeks in May, and the initiative denied media allegations today that they continued to collect signatures even after the legally mandated deadline.
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