As many as 34.1 percent of Roma girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are currently married or out of wedlock!
Despite that, according to UNICEF data, the centers for social work immediately intervened in only 29 percent of detected cases, ie they estimated that less than a third endangered the life, health and development of a child in need of protection.
The latest research of "Praxis" showed, however, that less than half of the centers keep special records on child marriages (43 percent). The centers have detected only 313 cases of risk of child marriages in the previous two years, while current UNICEF data show that only 21 percent of children managed to return to the primary family.
Children were not aware that selling children and forcing minors to marry is a criminal offense. They also expressed complete distrust in the institutions, because the authorities did not react appropriately in any situation known to them, and they do not know of a single case in which child marriage was prevented.
