| Population: 4,334,142
Population Growth Rate: 1.48%
Birth Rate: 12.82 births/1,000 population
Life Expectancy: total population: 73.9 years; male: 70.28 years; female: 77.73 years
Literacy Rate: total population: 97%; male: 99%; female: 95%
Net Migration Rate: 13.37 migrants/1,000 population
Unemployment Rate: 22%
Gross Domestic Product per Capita: US$5,800
Religions: Roman Catholic 76.5%, Orthodox 11.1%, Muslim 1.2%, Protestant 0.4%, other and unknown 10.8%
Languages: Croatian 96%, other 4% (including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German)
Ethnic Groups: Croat 78.1%, Serb 12.2%, Bosniak 0.9%, Hungarian 0.5%, Slovenian 0.5%, Czech 0.4%, Albanian 0.3%, Montenegrin 0.3%, Roma 0.2%, other 6.6%
Capital: Zagreb |
Croatian women and children are being trafficked to western European countries such as France. Usually, these women are forced into prostitution and are not allowed to keep their earnings. Prosecuting their traffickers is difficult, as many women fear harm were they to implicate criminal networks in the process of cooperating with authorities.[1] Croatian women also are reported to continue to suffer as victims of violence and abuse associated with the ethnic cleansing that occurred during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.[2] Despite the difficulty, prosecution of traffickers does occur. In 1999, six Croatian men were sentenced to 4 to 6 years in a French prison for procuring Czech, Russian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan women for purposes of prostitution and for providing the women with false Croatian passports. The women had been trafficked through Budapest, where they were given false Croatian passports.[3] The prevalence of alien smuggling activities in the region also is an indication of sexual trafficking. Recently, Bosnian border police arrested 37 illegal immigrants from Iran and Turkey who attempted to cross the western border shared with Croatia.[4] The police indicted the 37 men for allegedly smuggling some 900 illegal immigrants into European Union countries. The 37 were believed to be part of a large smuggling ring thought to have earned about half a million U.S. dollars from its activities. After a Croatian crackdown on the ring in April 2001, police reported a lower number of illegal immigrants along the border with Slovenia.[5] Croatia’s Criminal Code treats sexual trafficking as a serious offense. The Criminal Code prohibits “establishment of slavery and transport of slaves.”[6] The code adopts a broad definition of what constitutes a criminal offense in this regard; included are buying, selling, or mediating in the purchase of a person or sale of a minor for the purposes of adoption, transplantation of organs, exploitation by labor, or “other illicit purposes.”[7] The code also criminalizes “illegal transfer of persons across the state border.”[8] Similarly, the code criminalizes “international prostitution”[9] (i.e., luring, recruiting, or inciting another person to offer sexual services for profit within a state outside the one in which the person resides or is a citizen). Punishment takes the form of imprisonment, which ranges from 3 months to 3 years. The penalty increases in range from 6 months to 5 years if force, threat, or deceit is used to coerce a person into prostitution,[10] and from 1 to 10 years if the victim is a child or a minor.[11] Also prohibited is pandering, which the code defines as organizing or assisting another person in offering sexual services.[12] Punishment for the offense is imprisonment up to 1 year.[13] Although not considered a criminal act under Croatia’s Criminal Code, prostitution is an offense against the country’s law protecting public peace and order. The law punishes prostitution by a fine or imprisonment for up to 30 days.[14] The same law prohibits practicing prostitution on one’s premises and promoting prostitution.[15] Croatia’s Criminal Code treats sexual trafficking as a serious offense. The code criminalizes establishment of slavery and transport of slaves,[16] illegal transfer of persons across the state border,[17] and involvement in international prostitution.[18] Croatia’s constitution forbids forced labor or any form of slavery. The minimum age of employment is 14 years. Croatia’s Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering of 1997[19] imposes several obligations on credit and financial institutions to combat laundering of proceeds of crimes and to report suspicious transactions. The Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering is responsible for implementing the law.[20] Money laundering is considered a criminal offense under the Criminal Code.[21] Croatia has ratified the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention (105) on the Abolition of Forced Labor; the ILO Convention (182) to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor; the United Nations (UN) Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; and signed the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. However, Croatia has not ratified the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography or the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
[1] “Big Increase in Eastern European Prostitution in Strasbourg,” Agence France Presse, 5 April 2000. [2] “Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds¾The Torture of Women Worldwide,” Amnesty International Online, 3 June 2001, <http://www.amnesty.org>. [3] “Slovak Woman Sentenced in Nice for Procurement,” Czech News Agency, 6 January 1999. [4] “Bosnian Police Arrest 37 Iranian and Turkish Illegal Immigrants,” Agence France Presse, 9 October 2000. [5] “37 Indicted for Human Trafficking in Croatia,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 4 July 2001. [6] Article 175. [7] Ibid. Punishment for these offenses is imprisonment for not less than 5 years. [8] Article 177. Punishment for the offense is a fine or imprisonment for up to 1 year. [9] Article 178(1). [10] Article 178(2). [11] Article 178(3). [12] Article 195(1). [13] Ibid. [14] Article 12. [15] Article 195. [16] Article 175. [17] Article 177. [18] Article 178. [19] The law was passed on 18 June 1997 and entered into force on 1 November 1997. [20] The office is a part of the Ministry of Finance. [21] Article 236.
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