Josipovic said that awareness for gender equality rights needs to be raised.

He commented that as far as civilian victims of war were concerned and the perpetrators of rape and other war crimes even though some progress was evident in the prosecution of those crimes, it was still insufficient.

"It is up to us to build peace and to forgive what happened during the war but not to forget", Josipovic said. In southeast Europe we witnessed new forms of war crimes and in addition to rape, intentional pregnancy of rape victims has been recognised by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as such even though there are still too many cases that have not been processed.

In peace-time conditions access to justice primarily in cases of family violence, despite improved legislation, still too often treats the victims more harshly than the perpetrator, according to him.

He pointed out that the percentage of women in politics, the economy, labour market and army is still unsatisfactory. In the new latest convocation of the Croatian Parliament there is only 19 percent of women MPs and only 20 percent female representation in the Government.

Unemployment figures are alarming when we see that 60 percent of the unemployed are women, Josipovic said.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Welfare Policy and Youth Milanka Opacic too ascertained that there was insufficient female participation in government at the state level but even less at the local government level.

Women are always underpaid and in crisis they are the one to bear the brunt, she said.

The conference, organised by the Regional Women's Lobby for Peace, Security and Justice in Southeast Europe, was attended by Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister and the current president of the Lobby Edita Tahiri, Minister of State in Finland Elisabeth Rehn, and several Croatian ministers. The Women's Lobby founded a Croatian branch in 2006 and includes reputable women in society, politics and activists in the region.