Photo: Profimedia

Without any discussion or explanation, the mother sent her underage daughter with a bag of clothes, stating that the young man was her husband. “When a girl is promised, it is set in stone, there is no refusal”, she was told. The girl was too afraid to say anything, she just cried. In the house where she was married, or sold, she lived with this man and his family. On the same day when she came, she was forced to have her first sexual intercourse with her “husband”, after which she was beaten and threatened, which occurred on a daily basis.

Child marriages represent a problematic practice in which a child forcibly enters into marriage with another child or with an adult. This phenomenon is characteristic in various communities in many countries, but, as a rule, primarily affects girls. Although this practice in Serbia is present to a lesser extent than in some other areas, although it is prohibited and punishable, unfortunately, there are still thousands of children who, on an annual basis, enter into child marriages. In Serbia, this problem is particularly pronounced within the Roma community.