Child marriage or one entered at an early age forever steals the childhood of every girl or boy who finds themselves in the role of a marriage partner. Overnight, boys become breadwinners and guardians of the family, facing early fatherhood, and the burden of taking care of household members, including a newborn, falls on girls overnight, because very often child marriages are also accompanied by child pregnancies. These are the new family roles for which they are emotionally, physically, or mentally unprepared.
According to research from 2020, cited by the ombudsperson for children Helenca Pirnat Dragičević at the roundtable titled How to escape the vicious cycle of poverty in Čakovec in November 2022, 40 percent of young Roma women give up education precisely because of early marriage, and there are many cases when they choose marriage or living with a partner to escape an unfavorable family situation. Poverty, which brings with it the lack of a suitable place to live, the impossibility of realizing one’s privacy, a low level of education, poor information about one’s rights, and passivity in their realization is one of the main causes for such a decision. When asked why they decided to get married and have children as minors, Roma girls answer that they had neither the conditions nor the opportunities at home. Most often, girls state that they were driven away by poverty thinking that they would be better off and that any way of living was better than theirs but then all their hopes and dreams collapsed.
Višnja Ljubičić, ombudsperson for gender equality, spoke about the experiences of Romani women during their married life, and pointed out that very quickly women face a reality completely different from the one they imagined but very similar to the one they were running away from: They fail to achieve a quality partnership or build an understanding with their spouses. Spousal affection is missing, as well as help in caring for their newborn child, so they often seek help from their mother-in-law or their mother because they realize that they are not ready for motherhood, in the sense that they lack knowledge and skills. In a certain number of cases, girls have a bad relationship with their parents-in-law, while instead of their husband’s support, which is absent, they experience physical and emotional abuse, coercion in sexual relations, fear of their spouse, resistance to having more children and husband’s opposition to contraception.
Young Roma women are insufficiently informed about the importance of education for their future, and their parents are mostly undereducated, lacking social skills that would prevent their daughters from leaving school and supporting them in the process of schooling. Schools, on the other hand, comprehend their situation to a certain extent, but the feeling of complete trust, security, and understanding girls cannot fully achieve either at school or in the family. Parents of girls and women who had run away from home and started their own families, in some cases, realized that they were losing control and supervision and that they were helpless, that their good parental advice was being ignored, and that the influence of their daughters’ peers who had acted similarly was stronger than their influence, which is not unusual for their age. It happened that in the end, they would get custody of the children that their daughters could not take care of, said Višnja Ljubičić, and pointed out that it is necessary to include parents in projects of empowering young Roma women. The overall inclusion of girls, parents, and school staff would encourage a reconsideration of traditional gender roles necessary for changes in transgenerational awareness, in which it would be fully possible to accept gender equality, which is already happening in the wider population. It is precisely young fathers who assume their role in taking care of children and household chores, and these are highly educated people of the younger generation who accept such actions as a standard, as one of the norms of their family life, said Ljubičić.
The fight against poverty and the fight against discrimination overlap, with education helping to solve both problems. Ombudsperson Tena Šimonović Einwalter spoke about this, connecting employment with education, which is the basis for achieving economic independence for every young Romani woman. Educated girls and women find work more easily and quickly, are less likely to face child pregnancy and early marriage, have more control over their lives, and are therefore less likely to be victims of violence.
A detailed analysis of all the causes that lead to child or early marriages, among which poverty, interruption of education, tradition, and customs occupy the lead, speak of the extremely difficult position of Roma women, which is also recognized at the European level. The Council of Europe, as well as the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, define it as intersectional discrimination. In practice, this means that Roma women are discriminated against on several grounds, as women, then based on their Roma nationality, and then most often based on their financial status, all representing a recognized and prohibited form of discrimination in Croatia.
Violation of children’s rights also represents a violation of human rights, which is illegal and should be treated as such. Recognizing the eradication of extreme poverty, the right to basic education, the promotion of gender equality, and the empowerment of women as four of the eight key development goals, the UN set as a strategic interest in its Agenda for Sustainable Development the prohibition of child marriages at the world level by 2030.
When underage girls find themselves married, even more, if they have given birth, almost as a rule the development of their potential stops and they are prevented from realizing their right to education. Giving birth at a physically, mentally, and emotionally immature age, taking care of children, community that humiliates and economic dependence turn them into victims, and they cannot change it themselves. Therefore, they need the support and help of the educational system, centers for social welfare, and state institutions that are there to protect their rights, while the education of parents is also needed to increase their child raising capacities.
