I want my story to be heard, and not for people to say that Croatia wants returnees because that is a blatant lie. Things are systematically made harder for us at every step and we truly experience discrimination and harassment, she said.

A young woman who recently returned to Croatia from Ireland told NOVA TV about her, as she says, disappointing experience of returning and facing Croatian reality.

“I came to Croatia in July and only in September did I manage to get an ID card. And without it I couldn’t sort out my residence nor apply for any job, not to mention I wasn’t entitled to health insurance,” begins her story the young woman from Zadar who is, as she says, deeply disappointed in the Croatian state.

She returned from Ireland

She agreed to return from Ireland because of love. She went there at 19, graduated from university, got a job, and then decided to return.

“My partner, also Croatian, is a seafarer, so it suited him better for us to settle in Croatia. I agreed because our climate definitely suits me better and after much hesitation I said, ‘okay, let’s try’.

I regretted it already after trying to register my residence in Zadar. Until then I had residence in Ireland, I deregistered everything here because I never thought I would return, but now that I had returned, I wanted to register again.

At the police they told me I would wait about a month and a half for them to come to my address to check whether I really live there, and then they would also question the neighbors about me even though none of them know me. I don’t understand that logic, what was I supposed to do, stay home for a month and a half in case they show up at my door? And what will they be looking for, checking where I keep my underwear, I suppose?! I also don’t understand under what laws they are allowed to share my data,” asks the 27-year-old Croatian woman.

“They laughed at me at the HZZO counter”

As she is pregnant, she needs medical check-ups, but she was not registered in Croatia so she was not health insured either.

“At HZZO they laughed at me at the counter, said there was nothing they could do, but that I should pay 1300 euros for insurance for the previous year and another 98 euros for the months for which I need insurance! Why would I pay for the previous year when I wasn’t even here nor did I use anything? They told me to get a job somewhere and that on that basis I might be able to get insurance. But I couldn’t do that either because without residence I couldn’t apply for a job, and so round and round it goes,” she explained.

She did eventually get health insurance because her partner’s father employed her ”on paper” so that she could be insured.

“Not to mention how they treated me at the counters, wherever I went, from the employment office, police, health insurance, the clerks are rude and unapproachable. In Ireland I worked in the IT sector of the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs so I didn’t deal with the public, but it is known how one behaves, there it is inconceivable to raise your voice at a customer. In Croatia at all counters there is shouting and rudeness. I got out of the habit of that kind of behavior, in Ireland there is none of that, there is no chance someone at work would behave like that toward clients,” our interviewee points out.

She is already thinking about leaving

All of that, she says, has prompted her to think again about leaving, although her partner still wants to stay.

“Yes, he wants to, but I don’t. I could somehow still understand it if I were a foreign citizen, but such treatment toward someone who has Croatian citizenship, who was born here and lived here for 20 years? Everyone really wants us to come back, and yet they make every step of that return harder for us,” concludes the interviewee, disappointed, who wishes to remain anonymous. 

She adds that because of everything she is upset and under constant stress, so she fears for the baby who is due to be born in the spring. 

“I’m waiting for the first examination with the gynecologist, which I will have to pay for, plus all the other examinations, and after that I’m going straight back to Ireland and I do not intend to set foot in Croatia ever again! One should renounce citizenship and forget that I ever experienced this disgusting behavior. Croatia can only dream of ever being even remotely close to Ireland. How you live here is truly beyond me. I want my story to be heard, and not for people to say that Croatia wants returnees because that is a blatant lie. Things are systematically made harder for us at every step and we truly experience discrimination and harassment,” she said.

Source: poslovni.hr