Montenegro

6% of girls in Montenegro are married before the age of 18 and 2% are married before the age of 15.

Child marriage is most prevalent in the north of the country and in rural areas.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that women and girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.

Child marriage in Montenegro is exacerbated by:

Level of education: 20% of women who completed primary school were married before the age of 18, compared to only 1% of women who had completed higher education.
Poverty: 14% of women living in Montenegro’s poorest households were married as children, compared to 4% in the richest households.
Religion: 15% of women who were married before the age of 18 were from Muslim households and 5% were from Orthodox households.

Ethnicity: Child marriage and forced cohabitation is particularly common among Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities, which often results in early pregnancy.

Montenegro has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The government did not provide an update on progress towards this target during its Voluntary National Review at the 2016 High Level Political Forum.

Montenegro co-sponsored the following Human Rights Council resolutions: the 2013 procedural resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2015 resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2017 resolution on recognising the need to address child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian contexts, and the 2019 resolution on the consequences of child marriage. In 2014, Montenegro also signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

Montenegro co-sponsored the 2013, 2014 and 2018 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

Montenegro deposited the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2006, which sets a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2006, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

During its 2017 review, the CEDAW Committee raised concerns of child and forced marriage and cohabitation among Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities. It recommended that the government raise awareness of the harmful impact that child marriage has on the health and development of girls, identify and protect victims of child marriage and raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 years.

In 2018, the Child Rights Committee expressed similar concerns as the CEDAW Committee had in 2017, and recommended Montenegro to amend its legislation to remove all exceptions that allow marriage under the age of 18 years.

During its 2018 Universal Periodic Review, Montenegro supported recommendations to continue its efforts to raise awareness about forced unions and child or forced marriages in the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities, and agreed to review recommendations to take measures to prohibit child marriage.

Montenegro has ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (known as the Istanbul Convention), which considers forced marriage a serious form of violence against women and girls, and legally binds state parties to criminalise the intentional conduct of forcing an adult or child into a marriage.

Montenegro is a pathfinder country for the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children.

In March 2020, the government of Montenegro launched a campaign against child marriages titled "Children are Children". The campaign is conducted by the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Police Directorate, in cooperation with the NGO Centre for Roma Initiatives.

The aim of the campaign is to raise the awareness of the harmful effects of arranged child marriage and inform that is a form of trafficking in human beings and a serious crime. The campaign will be especially focused on working with members of the Roma and Egyptian communities in Podgorica, Nikšić, Tivat and Berane.

Under the Family Law of Montenegro 2007, the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. However individuals may marry at 16 years with permission of the court.