Last year, seven children were murdered, and seven children committed a suicide, while 21 lost their lives in traffic accidents, according to the report the Croatia's Ombudwoman for Children compiled for 2023, after she collected data from various ministries.

The data provided by the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ) for the 2020-2022 period show that 105 children lost their lives and of them 43 were killed in traffic accidents, while 25 killed themselves, eight drowned, seven died as a result of suffocation, five were killed, and four lost their lives in falls.

Children also lose their lives due to their carelessness or excessive curiosity, for instance, when they climb onto the roof of trains where they can be electrocuted. Furthermore, negligence of adults can cause children’s deaths when leaving firearms accessible to minors, the ombudswoman, Helenca Pirnat Dragicevic, warns.

She underscores that under the last estimates of the population in 2022, a share of children in the total population is a mere 17.3%, with this share shrinking on a steady rate.

In 2023, the Office of Ombudswoman for Children received 13% more complaints (2,183) about the violations of children’s rights.

A majority of them referred to situations in high-conflict partnerships, parental responsibility and child custody.

Various criminal offences against children on rise

In 2023, as many as 6,409 criminal offences against children were reported to the police, and of them 837 were criminal offences of a sexual nature against minors.

Pirnat Dragicevic says that a rise in various criminal offences against children, especially in criminal offences of a sexual nature, is worrisome.

She said that in 2023 positive headway was made with the proposed protocol of conduct to address violence, and she welcomed the introduction of Barnahus model in Croatia, as a child-friendly, multidisciplinary and interagency response model for child welfare concerning children-victims of sex crimes.

She also underscores the imposition of harsher sentences an penalties for such crimes.