Sexual offences against children are the most serious form of child abuse, which infringe on their physical and sexual integrity, but also leave deep psychological consequences. At the international level, the main instruments for preventing and punishing sexual abuse and exploitation of children are the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Lanzarote Convention) and Directive 2011/93/EU on on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, and regarding the procedural rights of victims - Directive 2012/29/EU, establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. All above mentioned instruments have been implemented in the Croatian legislation. The Criminal Code from 2011 separated sexual offences against children into a separate Chapter of the law, which further emphasized the importance of protecting children from this type of violation, which is known to often leave serious consequences for the child's overall development. Statistical reviews of criminal offences and the number of reported and convicted offenders provide information on the increase in this type of criminal offences, but what is particularly worrying is that research shows that there is a very pronounced problem of the dark numbers for these offences (up to 10 unreported to 1 reported criminal offence). By informing and strengthening protective factors, as well as by educating children and adults about sexual abuse and exploitation, efforts are made to reduce the extent of this problem, but also to enable a timely and appropriate reaction to reported acts, as well as appropriate punishment and other measures aimed at the perpetrators. It is important to continue to work on improving the procedural rights of child victims, especially protecting their privacy and dignity, and adapting the entire procedure as much as possible to children, in such a way as to avoid additional traumatization and secondary victimization as much as possible. In this regard, great hopes are placed in the Barnahus model, whose implementation process in the Republic of Croatia is ongoing and is expected to come to life in 2026.