Dubravka Šimonovic

Dubravka Šimonovic was appointed as UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in June 2015 by the UN Human Rights Council for an initial three years' tenure, which she began on  August 1, 2015. Dr. Simonovich was a member of the CEDAW Committee between 2002 and 2014, and served as its chairperson in 2007 and 2008, its follow-up rapporteur from 2009 to 2011 and as the chairperson of the Optional Protocol Working Group in 2011. For a number of years, she headed the Human Rights Department at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia and attended the Fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995.  Later, she was posted as the Minister Plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission of Croatia to the UN in New York, where she was the Chairperson of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (2001 and 2002) and also member of the UNIFEM Consultative Committee. She was also the Ambassador to the OSCE and United Nations in Vienna, Austria.  Dr. Simonvich holds a Ph.D. in family law from the University of Zagreb.