The final conference of the project titled Enhancing the Role and Support to Women in Armed Forces and in Peacekeeping Missions, which was held on Monday, called for better detection of discrimination against women in the military, state agency Hina said.

The aim of the project, co-funded by he U.S. administration, is to raise awareness of the status of women in the Croatian army and peace missions and about the importance of women’s participation in decision-making.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said that the government was committed to including a higher number of women in policymaking and to gender equality.

In 2019 and 2020, there were specific training courses at the Police Academy for 504 male and female police officers about topics concerning gender equality, he said.

In the entire system of the Interior Ministry, women account for 30.96% of employees, and women make up 20% of police officers.

When it comes to higher-level office-holders in this system, women prevail at 54%.

A survey conducted among 366 respondents, of whom 67% were men, has shown that 21.59% said they had experienced some kind of discrimination. In those cases of discrimination, two thirds of perpetrators were men.

When it comes to the armed forces, a mere 13% of the 14,836 active duty officers are women, and this share is higher than in other NATO and EU member states.

The share of women employees in the ministry’s offices and departments is 50.2%.

The share of female participants in Croatia’s peace missions has been 5.83%

A survey conducted among 150 female staffers in the ministry shows that 60% of them have experienced some form of discrimination, and 30% say they have been discriminated against based on their sex.