History

Autonomous Women’s House Zagreb – A Feminist Legacy of Protection and Advocacy

Autonomous Women’s House Zagreb (AWHZ) emerged from the feminist movement and is the continuation of the Women’s Group Trešnjevka, founded in 1986. Within this group, the first SOS hotline for women and children survivors of abuse was established, launching operations on March 3, 1988. The Shelter opened on December 14, 1990. At the time, violence against women and their children was not officially recognized as a societal issue, despite growing discourse on gender equality.

AWHZ’s Shelter was the first in the entire region of the former Eastern Europe. Due to the lack of institutional support, it initially operated by squatting in a vacant apartment owned by the City of Zagreb. In the early years, work on the SOS hotline and in the Shelter was entirely voluntary, with the first financial support coming from women’s organizations abroad. Work at the SOS hotline, Shelter, and Women’s Counselling Centre was founded on principles developed within the women’s movement since the establishment of the first shelter in London in 1972. Since then, women’s organizations have built networks of shelters, counselling centres, hotlines, and rape crisis centres. Since 1987, AWHZ activists have received continuous training from professionals working in feminist-based shelters and women’s counselling centres across these networks.

From 1990, training included study visits to shelters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. During the war in the 1990s, professionals from around the world came to Croatia to provide education for AWHZ activists.

In 1997, the Women’s Counselling Centre expanded with international financial support, and since 2001, it has operated from a space owned by the City of Zagreb. Since 2007, the Shelter has been operating in a new city-owned location, renovated jointly by the City of Zagreb and the Government of Croatia.

The address of the Shelter is classified as an official state secret, making it the only shelter in Croatia with this level of confidentiality. Over the past 31 years, AWHZ has provided direct help and support to more than 47,000 women and their children.

Since the 1990s, AWHZ has played a key role in securing protection for women and children who have survived intimate partner violence, as well as in raising awareness about women’s rights, violence against women, and gender equality.

For many years, AWHZ’s Shelter remained the only autonomous shelter operating on feminist principles, resisting pressure from institutions to register as an open-type care home for adults and children, as required under then-existing laws.

Through its pioneering work, expertise, and hands-on experience in advocating for women’s rights and providing shelter and counselling services, AWHZ members have directly contributed to the founding of numerous other organizations and networks, either as founders or supporters.

Our consistent advocacy work has significantly influenced the development of legislation in Croatia relating to women’s rights protection, anti-discrimination, and violence against women. We have contributed to shifting public attitudes and changing institutional practices in their treatment of women survivors of violence. We advocated for changes to the Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Act, Misdemeanour Act, Family Act, Act on Protection from Domestic Violence, Social Welfare Act, and more.

We have actively participated in the international feminist movement’s efforts to create current global standards, and we influenced the Croatian government to adopt and ratify those standards (e.g., the Istanbul Convention, CEDAW and its related documents).

We continuously work on raising awareness among the public and institutions about violence against women, and we carry out various local and national campaigns to increase public awareness, inform women, the general public, and institutions, and provide education—starting with the first campaign and research in Croatia in 1997 titled Stop Violence Against Women.

We collaborate with numerous institutions and NGOs, both domestically and internationally. We are members of the Croatian Women’s Network (ŽMH), the PETRA Network for the Prevention and Elimination of Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation, and the SEKA Coordination of Women’s Groups. We are also a member of WAVE – Women Against Violence Europe. Through the Croatian Women’s Network, we participate in the work of the European Women’s Lobby, and since 2006, AWHZ members have represented Croatia in the European Women’s Lobby Observatory on Violence Against Women.