engleski

Sexual Abuse of Children in Croatia

Sexual crimes against children have been considered as one of the heaviest crimes in general. Once the crimes are discovered, the awareness of it deeply convulses a community. In most cases, there is a strong need not to acknowledge the incident. Even more so this would be the case with traditional countries. According to court statistics it seems the silence surrounding the sexual victimization of children has been broken only recently in Croatia. Having this in mind, the aim of this paper is to research the incidence of the heaviest sexual crimes against children in the last 10 years, to track statistical changes and detect their causes. The special attention has been given to the 1998 Criminal Law provisions governing the sexual crimes against children, which could be the cause of statistical increase in their incidence. The quality of enacted provisions has been evaluated in the research of the Supreme Court and three county courts' cases regarding the heaviest sexual crimes against children in the last 10 years. According to the analysis of criminal legal provisions implementation in court practice the author proposes solutions de lege ferenda.

sexual offences against children; criminological research; Croatia

nije evidentirano