Croacia

There is no publicly available government data on child marriage in Croatia.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.

There is limited information on child marriage in Croatia, but available evidence indicates that it is driven by:

Harmful practices: Child and arranged marriages still occur among poorer Roma communities. According to the government, the arrangement of marriages for minors in exchange for money or other compensation has been reportedly justified as a “Roma custom” but actually constitutes a form of trafficking.

Croatia has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The government submitted a Voluntary National Review in 2019 but there was no mention of child marriage.

Croatia has signed the 2021 Human Rights Council resolution on Child, Early and Forced Marriage in times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Croatia co-sponsored the following Human Rights Council Resolutions on child marriage: the 2013 resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2015 resolution to end child, early and forced marriage, recognising that it is a violation of human rights, the 2017 resolution recognising the need to address child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian contexts, and the 2019 resolution on the consequences of child marriage.

In 2014, Croatia also signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage. Croatia co-sponsored the 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2020 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

Croatia deposited the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2015 review, the CEDAW Committee raised concerns about the persistence of traditional harmful practices in Croatia, including child marriages, which lead Roma girls dropping out of school.

As part of its current review process, in 2018 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child requested Croatia to provide information on the measures taken to ensure that the minimum age for marriage is 18 years old, without exceptions.

Croatia has ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combatting violence against women and domestic violence (known as the Istanbul Convention), which considers forced marriage a serious form of violence against women and girls, and legally binds state parties to criminalise the intentional conduct of forcing an adult or child into a marriage.

Under the Family Act 2003 the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years.

However, a person aged 16 years and below 18 years may marry with the permission of the court.