New law allows child marriages in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Although the Committee of the United Nations UN requested Bosnia and Herzegovina BiH ban on childmarriages four years ago, the Republika Srpska RS entity submitted a draft law allowing such marriages to be allowed in the parliamentary procedure.

It is a completely new Family Law of the RS, which was adopted more than two decades after the adoption of the existing law with the aim of greater protection of the rights and interests of the child, and also gives greater rights to cohabitants.

Even after the UN CommitteeUN Committee called for the end to this harmful practice in BiH, the provision on child marriages was retained in the new text.

The provisions of the new Family Law of the RS also allow marriages for people over the age of 16 for justified reasons and this is decided by the court in a non-litigation procedure.

An identical provision exists in the Family Law of the Second BiH entity, the Federation of BiH FBiH, and also in the law of the District of Brcko.

BiH is bound by the Dayton Peace Agreement to directly respect it, as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the ChildUN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The FBiH and the Brcko District did not respond to Radio Free Europe's inquiry as to whether they would remove the provision on child marriages in accordance with the recommendations of the UN CommitteeUN Committee.

According to the last population census from 2013 there were about 12,400 young people under the age of 17 who were married in BiH, out of the 1.76 million married people registered, Slobodna Evropa reports.