"The number of women who seek help due to domestic violence has increased by 25 percent since the beginning of the pandemic," state agency Hina quoted the head of the B.a.B.e. woman's rights group, Petra Kontic, as saying, on Thursday, marking the National Day of Combating Violence Against Women.

Kontic said that on average three women contact their group every day, asking for help as victims of domestic violence. She said that this number “increased every year.”

“Croatian society is still patriarchal, and there are still attempts to make excuses for perpetrators, and put the entire blame for the violence on the victim,” she added.

In 2021, 31 women and 26 children were placed in the safe house run by B.a.B.e. This year there have been 20 women and 28 children, Kontic said.

“She described as ‘satisfactory’ the latest meeting between Justice Minister, Ivan Malenica, and civil society organisations combating domestic violence and violence against women, held late in August, after a woman was murdered in Novska,” state agency Hina said.

“Earlier this month, amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act, the Criminal Code and the law on protection from domestic violence were presented. Malenica announced that a set of amendments would be put into procedure by the end of the year which would take account, with the help of an interdisciplinary task force, of all the elements of domestic violence and violence against women as well as revise sanctions,” Hina added, without clarifying.

“The problem is no longer the law but its application, the unstandardized case law,” Kontic said, adding that “the fact that perpetrators are given mild sentences is also a big problem in the support system for women who are victims of violence.”

“What the system needs most is to educate and raise awareness among all factors in that support system,” Kontic said.

The National Day of Combating Violence Against Women is observed in memory of a multiple murder event which took place in a divorce hearing at a Zagreb court on 22 September 1999, when policeman Mato Oraskic shot and killed three women – his wife, Gordana, who had earlier reported him for domestic violence, her attorney, Hajra Prohic, and judge, Ljijljana Hvalec. He also shot court reporter, Stanka Cvetkovic, who survived.

Hina did not say what happened to Oreskic after the murders.