Children's Rights in Croatia: The Development and Legislative Framework

Prvi koraci u razvoju dječjih prava dogodili su se u razdoblju između Prvog i Drugog svjetskog rata. Rat je odraslima promijenio pogled na djecu i postalo je očito kako im je potrebna neka vrsta zakonodavne zaštite. Svijest oko tog pitanja nastavila se razvijati i u poslijeratnom periodu kada je u pripremi bio jedan od najvažnijih dokumenata o pravima djece. Konvencija o pravima djeteta donesena je 1989. godine, a Hrvatska ju je prihvatila i ratificirala početkom devedesetih. Hrvatskoj je bilo potrebno još nekoliko godina nakon rata da ispuni obvezu stvaranja zakonodavnog okvira za zaštitu dječjih prava. Danas Hrvatska ima niz zakona kojima štiti dječja prava, ali i naglašava obveze odraslih prema djeci. Fokus u ovom radu jesu zakoni Republike Hrvatske, točnije, šest zakona koji čine svojevrsni zakonodavni okvir zaštite dječjih prava. Analizirani s ciljem da se otkrije koliko je koja vrsta zakona po Konvenciji zastupljena u zakonima Republike Hrvatske. Također, u radu se nastoji prikazati način na koji izvanredne situacije mogu dovesti do poželjnih promjena u zakonodavstvu i dodatno proširiti prava djece koje jedna država, u ovom slučaju Hrvatska, nudi. Prava djece važno su pitanje za politologe koje se često zanemaruje, ali iako nisu pravnici sudjeluju u postupcima donošenja zakona i oni su ti koji na njihove promjene utječu.The first steps in the development of children's rights took place between the First and Second World Wars. The war changed the way adults look at children and it became obvious that they needed some kind of legislative protection. Awareness of this issue continued to develop in the post-war period when one of the most important documents on children's rights was being prepared. The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1989, and Croatia accepted and ratified it in the early 1990s. It took Croatia several more years after the war to fulfill its obligation to create a legislative framework for the protection of children's rights. Today, Croatia has a number of laws that protect children's rights, but also emphasizes the obligations of adults towards children. The focus of this paper are the laws of the Republic of Croatia, more precisely, the six laws that form a kind of legislative framework for the protection of children's rights. Analyzed in order to find out to what extent each type of law under the Convention is represented in the laws of the Republic of Croatia. Also, the paper tries to show the way in which emergencies can lead to desirable changes in legislation and further expand the rights of children that one country, in this case Croatia, offers. Children's rights are an important issue for political scientists that is often overlooked, but although they are not lawyers they participate in law-making processes and they are the ones who influence these changes