Various provisions of the Croatian Constitution protect the rights of children. Article 62 states that the Republic of Croatia shall protect maternity, children and young people, and create the social, cultural, educational, material and other conditions for promoting the right to a decent life for such persons. This protection is not limited to Croatian nationals and would therefore provide protection to migrant children, young people and pregnant women.

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Various provisions of the Croatian Constitution protect the rights of children. Article 62 states that the Republic of Croatia shall protect maternity, children and young people, and create the social, cultural, educational, material and other conditions for promoting the right to a decent life for such persons. This protection is not limited to Croatian nationals and would therefore provide protection to migrant children, young people and pregnant women. Article 63 places a number of duties on the parents of children, on children themselves and on the state. Parents are under a duty to bring up, support and educate their children, and have the right and freedom to do so independently. Parents are also responsible for ensuring the right of their children to the full and harmonious development of their personalities and physically and mentally disabled and socially neglected children have the right to special care, education and welfare. Children are bound under the provision to take care of old and helpless parents. The State has responsibility of taking special care of minors without parents or children neglected by their parents.

Article 64 places a duty on all persons to protect children and helpless persons. Children may not be employed before reaching a certain age, nor may they be forced or allowed to do any type of work which is harmful to their health or morality. Young people, mothers and disabled persons are also entitled to special protection in the workplace.

Under the Act on Movement and Stay of Aliens of 1991, Article 29, children are entitled to permanent settlement if their parents obtain this status, migrant children do not therefore have to make separate applications. Similarly, children of refugees enjoy the same rights as the parents and after turning 18, they are considered to be an alien with extended stay. The new Law on Aliens of 2003, which will supersede the 1991 Act, came into force in July 2003 and will be in use from January 2004. Article 47 states that the permanent settlement of a minor with temporary stay will be approved if one of their alien parents has approved permanent stay, providing the other parent consents to it. As immediate family members under Article 43 of the Law (see 8.8-Family Reunion) children may have their temporary stay extended for up to three years, or until they fulfil the requirements for issuing permanent stay (see 8.2-Immigration Law and Policy). Article 44 of the Law provides that children born on the territory of Croatia who are not Croatian citizens do not need approval of stay for up to one month, and that following this period their stay would be approved in accordance with the Law and extended for the period of which their parents or guardian have approved temporary stay.

The new Asylum law of 2003, which will come into force in July 2004, provides extra protection for unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors, it states that unaccompanied minors seeking asylum will be assigned a guardian and that their asylum claim will be resolved in the shortest possible period. The Ministry of Interior is also required to conduct the procedures with account of the level of psychophysical development of the minor. Also under the 2003 Act, Article 32 provides that minors would follow the status of their parent or legal guardian to whom asylum has been granted.

Croatia is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). They adopted the Convention into their national legal system in 1991 after the break-up of Yugoslavia, under the Notification Act, and on the basis of the Constitutional Decision on the Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Croatia of 25 June 1991 and the Decision by the Parliament of the Republic of Croatia of 8 October 1991. The first report was considered by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in December 1994 and it highlighted the difficulties faced by children in Croatia as a result of first, the war which began in 1991 and second, the changes in the political and economic system in Croatia after the first multiparty elections in1990. The next report to the Committee under the Convention is due in June 2004.

Analysis provided by: Anisa Niaz LLM (Public Law), United Kingdom.

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