After years of fighting to foster or to adopt children in Croatia, Ivo Šegota and Mladen Kožić won the long-lasting legal battle against the state. The Zagreb-based Administrative Court ruled last month that same-sex couples have the right to become foster parents. Ivo and Mladen told local media they would like to have two or three children, brothers and sisters, if possible. “This is a Christmas gift we didn't dare to hope for”, Šegota told to the court.

For the very first time, Croatia has upheld the international case law and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) according to which same-sex couples must be treated equally as heterosexual couples. Activists call it a historic moment for the LGBT community in the country.

Back to 2016, the ECHR fined Croatia for discriminating against same-sex couples by not granting residence permits to couples in which one partner comes from abroad. By then, the right was guaranteed for foreigners in heterosexual marriages or non-marital partnerships only. Read more via Fair Planet