The Croatian Chamber of Economy (HGK) said on Tuesday it was taking legal action against Hrvoje Bujas, chair of the Voice of Entrepreneurs NGO, over his calling the HGK an institution for employing female lovers which, the HKG added, insulted all women working there.

The HGK said in a press release that following Bujas’s statements in a Croatian Television talk show on Sunday, it was forced to respond and defend all its employees.

Bujas’s statement that the HGK is an institution for employing female lovers “insults all HGK female employees who do their job responsibly. Many are highly qualified experts with years of experience in the private sector, yet Mr Bujas dares to publicly and baselessly insult and call them out.”

The HGK said it was proud that more than 75% of its employees were women, calling this “our great strength.”

The Chamber said it reported Bujas’s “extremely tasteless verbal outburst” to the gender equality ombudsperson and that it was considering further legal action over Sunday’s insults “as well as the other defamatory things he has said.”

Ombudsperson: Bujas’s approach is discriminatory and sexist

Gender Equality Ombudsperson Visnja Ljubicic used this case to once again point to the social responsibility of public figures for their public statements, calling Bujas’s sexist.

She said that under the Gender Equality Act, a criticism of someone’s work must not be based on an insulting, belittling or humiliating depiction of a person on gender grounds.

“Mr Bujas, explaining his negative view of the HKG as an institution, said among other things that the women in the HGK were employed because they were someone’s lover, which insults, belittles and humiliates all female HGK employees on gender grounds,” she said.

Instead of a well-argued criticism of the institution’s work, to which he is entitled, Bujas implied that the women working in the HGK are not qualified for their jobs but were hired only because of their sexual relations, Ljubicic added.

Under the Gender Equality Act, such a sexist approach is discriminatory as gender is being taken as a relevant and the only basis for the evaluation, in this case devaluation, of someone’s work, skills or accomplishments, she said.