Human rights in Croatia remain on hold—there has been no significant progress overall, and citizens continue to face numerous severe, sometimes systemic issues, which is unacceptable. This is reflected in the data and analyses from the 2024 Ombudswoman’s Annual Report, submitted to the Croatian Parliament this week by Ombudswoman Tena Šimonović Einwalter and presented today at a press conference.
The most pressing issues are in healthcare, social welfare, and the growing poverty rate. In 2024, one in five people in Croatia was at risk of poverty, the highest rate since 2012. Support for the homeless remains completely inadequate, with no signs of improvement. Older persons are among the most vulnerable—37% of those over 65 are at risk of poverty, rising to 61.4% among those living alone.
These are unprecedented levels of poverty among older persons ever since comparable data became available in 2010, and it is just one aspect of the difficulties they face. Nursing homes are largely inaccessible due to insufficient capacities and high costs, with concerning conditions in some facilities. Additionally, there are no measures enabling employed children or grandchildren to provide care for their elderly and infirm family members.
Complaints regarding the right to health focused on the loss of mandatory health insurance, lack of access to healthcare, long waiting lists, inability to obtain information about one’s medical condition, poor behavior and communication by healthcare staff, and difficulties in the placement of patients who cannot care for themselves due to age or health conditions. The Report highlights particular issues faced by oncology patients and those in palliative care.
Discrimination remains the most frequent complaint, primarily in the field of employment, with race, ethnicity, skin color, and national origin being the most common grounds. Awareness of what constitutes discrimination and how to seek protection remains low. The Roma community continues to struggle with breaking the cycle of poverty, exacerbated by ongoing segregation of Roma children in education. There has also been a rise in unacceptable rhetoric, hate speech, and various forms of anti-minority discourse, partially linked to the three instances of elections in 2024.
Challenges related to the rule of law persist, with poor perception of judicial independence, threats to press freedom, obstacles for human rights defenders, and low public trust in institutions. In protecting whistleblowers, efforts must continue to strengthen a culture of reporting and to ensure that irregularities reported are tied to public interest rather than individual grievances.
Prison overcrowding has worsened, reaching alarming levels, with two prisons exceeding 200% capacity in 2024.
Some positive steps have been made, particularly in housing policy, including the preparation of Croatia’s first strategic housing policy document and several new laws. Amendments to the Act on Foreigners, which better regulate the status of foreign workers while protecting domestic workers from wage suppression, are also a welcome change. However, the impact of these measures remains to be seen.
This is only a fraction of the topics covered in the 2024 Ombudswoman’s Report, which includes a total of 60 topics, such as youth, labor rights, elections, housing, the impact of earthquakes on human rights, the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, asylum seekers and irregular migrants, artificial intelligence, and more.
The Report provides 158 recommendations for improvements, but their implementation depends on the authorities to whom they are addressed, primarily the executive branch.
Unfortunately, the Croatian Parliament has yet to discuss the Ombudswoman’s Reports for 2022 and 2023 in a plenary session, as well as the special 2022 report “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Human Rights and Equality – Recommendations for Strengthening Resilience to Future Crises.” Moreover, the Croatian Government has still not adopted an opinion on the 2023 Report, which is a prerequisite for its parliamentary discussion, and in multiple cases, it has failed to respond to letters from the Ombudswoman highlighting problems affecting many citizens. The Ministry of Health stood out in 2024 for its failure to respond to such communications.
For the Report to have an impact and for the independent institution to fulfill its constitutional role, reports must be discussed in the year they are submitted. Ignoring these reports and the issues that citizens continuously raise with the Ombudswoman is unacceptable.
In 2024, the most common complaints from citizens related to discrimination, the right to health, and labor rights. The Ombudswoman handled a total of 6,404 cases, of which 4,942 were newly initiated.
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