ZAGREB, 13 April, 2021 - Almost 200 social workers from all over Croatia have filed criminal charges against the founder of the 'Save Me' civil initiative, Jelena Veljača, and actress Nataša Janjić Medančić, claiming that their comments on social media incited violence and hate against social workers.

Lawyer Klaudio Čurin filed the criminal charges with the State Attorney's Office on behalf of the  social workers.

In a statement to Hina, Čurin said that he was given a power of attorney on behalf of more than 150 social workers, whose number has in the meantime increased to more than 200.

"I am getting calls from all over Croatia, even from the islands," said Čurin, who believes that with their comments on social networks, the two activists committed a crime against public order - public incitement to violence and hate.

The legal action has been supported by the Chamber of Social Workers, which has called on other professional chambers to show their support. 

The chamber said that a few days ago the spontaneous initiative had emerged among social workers to file criminal charges against Veljača and Janjić Medančić.

After the recent violent death of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl in Nova Gradiška, who was taken from her foster family and returned to her birth parents, Veljača called for those responsible at the local welfare centre to be dismissed.

Janjić Medančić joined Veljača with her comments, which have been erased in the meantime, in which they referred to social workers as people feathering their own nests and murderers. Social workers responded by saying that their comments contributed to an atmosphere of lynching and that the two were not competent to discuss that topic.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 6 April, 2021 - The founder of the #Spasime (Save me) initiative, Jelena Veljača, said on Tuesday it was agreed at today's meeting with Social Policy Minister Josip Aladrović that an action plan to restructure and improve the system should be urgently adopted.

Speaking to the press after the meeting, Veljača said she was sorry if she had contributed to a campaign against social workers with a recent statement which she said "was prompted by the outcome of the monstrous event in Nova Gradiška."

In a recent Facebook post, she pushed for sacking and revoking the licences of the whole "expert" team from the social welfare centre in Nova Gradiška and establishing if they were criminally accountable for the death of a girl of two and a half who had been severely beaten by her mother.

Veljača said today "we must not ignore problems" and that this case "is not an incident," adding that the initiative had wanted to warn about problematic cases that did not end in death.

She said she was pleased that the initiative had been in dialogue with Minister Aladrović since November and that he had shown the political will and personal desire to improve the social welfare system.

She said child rights must come first, before parental rights. "We agreed that the ministry should draft an action plan to improve the system."

Veljača said decisions must be made within the system and that she hoped someone would be held to account for this "absolutely unnecessary death and that no one will hide behind the system."

#Spasime representatives said it was agreed with Justice Ministry officials that a register of domestic abuse cases should be made that would give access to everyone dealing with the problem - social services, courts and prosecutors.

Last week Aladrović's ministry instructed directors of social welfare centres that in cases of domestic violence, professionals must apply the Istanbul Convention and violence protocols. This means that in evaluating parental competence, a parent's history of violence is taken as an aggravating circumstance and that a child's interest must come before that of parents.

At today's meeting it was also agreed that oversight of social services' actions should be conducted regularly.

Vedrana Šimundža-Nikolić of the Justice Ministry said it was agreed to define as a separate crime when an official, through inaction or wrong action, failed to protect a child's rights and this had consequences

"The law already envisages punishing someone who does not execute a decision to protect a child's well-being and rights, but in (the Nova Gradiška case) we don't have failure to execute a decision, but to make it. That would be prosecuted as a separate crime."

The head of the Family and Social Policy Administration, Marija Barilić, said the Family and Social Policy Ministry had begun making analyses of children in foster care and care homes "so that we can see their situation, if they should stay in the system."

Minister Aladrović said the ministry was very determined to change the system and that he was confident the system could be improved through the joint efforts of everyone in society.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

Jelena Veljača, Croatian actress, writer and activist was a guest on the Sunday talk-show "Nedjeljom u 2" (On Sundays at 2 pm), and her heated debate with Aleksandar Stanković, the host, caused a lot of reactions.

We already reported that on Saturday numerous protests were held in several Croatian towns, supporting the victims of sexual violence and highlighting the inappropriate official response to several such incidents over the past few years.

In light of the growing awareness of the issues of women's rights in Croatia, Aleksandar Stanković invited Jelena Veljača, a well-known Croatian actress, columnist and writer-turned-activist to talk about those issues. Their discussion turned out to be quite heated after the host asked several questions that Veljača (and numerous viewers, who later commented on social media) found to be insensitive and/or inappropriate.

One of them was to do with the #metoo movement, which started in Hollywood, and Stanković asked Veljača to explain why Salma Hayek allowed assaults by Harvey Weinstein for fourteen years. Veljača replied that what he was doing was the secondary victimisation of Hayek, which arose from the fact that he's a white straight man who holds a position of power. She told him that he does not understand that men and women, even in the same position of power, are not equal, which is something that the feminists have been trying to explain for a while now.

She also tried to explain why it took so long for Hayek to report the abuse, that there's no way for us to know why it took so long, and that the women who were abused need to have the right to report the abuse whenever they choose to do so. After that, Stanković asked Jelena Veljača to explain to him the line between benign advances and sexual harrassment, to which she answered that the difference is clear, as advances can be declined without consequences.

After the show, numerous reactions were written on social media, including some strong disapprovals of the questions asked by the host, which prompted him to respond on Facebook today. He said that he refuses to clarify his positions on human rights issues, as he's been talking about those repeatedly during the twenty years of his career. He maintains his position on Salma Hayek but accepts Veljača's suggestion that each victim has a right to report abuse on her own terms.