C S E C The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Bulgaria.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of child prostitution are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring how children got started, how they survive, and
how some succeed in leaving. Perhaps
your paper could focus on runaways and the abuse that led to their
leaving. Other factors of interest
might be poverty, rejection, drug dependence, coercion, violence, addiction,
hunger, neglect, etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to write about the manipulative and dangerous adults
who control this activity. There is a
lot to the subject of Child Prostitution.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. HELP for Victims International
Office for Migration Bulgaria Hotline ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Child Prostitution
Decreasing in Balkan Investigative
Reporting Network BIRN, 08 06 2007 www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/child-prostitution-decreasing-in-bulgaria [accessed 12
Aug 2013] The decrease in child prostitution was confirmed by the 2006 US Department of State Report on Human Rights Practises in Bulgaria, which stated that "the Ministry of Interior identified 255 children as 'at risk' of being forced into prostitution between January and October, compared to 398 in 2005." While child prostitution is on the decrease, a hurdle in the fight against it seems to be a lack of a legal framework. The Bulgarian judiciary does not offer a definition of child prostitution and does not define prostitution in general as a crime, Petkov pointed out. Mentioning the
strict laws against kidnapping for prostitution purposes that are currently
in place, Petkov added "Bulgaria is not
considered a destination for so-called 'child sex tourism'." ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Country
Monitoring Report [PDF] Lara Green, ECPAT
International, 2013 www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/A4A_V2_EU_Bulgaria.pdf [accessed 26 August
2020] Desk review of
existing information on the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) in
Bulgaria. The report looks at protection mechanisms, responses, preventive
measures, child and youth participation in fighting SEC, and makes
recommendations for action against SEC. Human
Rights Reports » 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 10, 2020 www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/bulgaria/ [accessed 23 August
2020] SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - The law differentiates between forcing children into
prostitution, which is punishable by up to eight years’ imprisonment and a
fine of up to 15,000 levs ($8,400), and child sex trafficking, punishable by
up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to 20,000 levs ($11,200). The
law prohibits child pornography and provides for up to six years in prison
and a fine of up to 8,000 levs ($4,480) for violations. Authorities enforced
the law. The legal minimum age for consensual sex is 14. In April the UN
special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children found that
Romani children were disproportionately at risk of sexual or other types of
violence and that cooperation among the various authorities engaged in child
protection remained a problem. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/bulgaria.htm [accessed 24 January
2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children are involved in the distribution of drugs
and in prostitution, sometimes working with organized crime rings. Many
victims of child prostitution are ethnic Roma children. Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 7 and 8 January 1997 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/bulgaria1997.html [accessed 24 January
2011] [14] The Committee
is also concerned by the reported ill-treatment of children in the family and
in institutions and the lack of adequate measures for the psycho-social
recovery from such abuses. Cases of ill-treatment of children by law
enforcement personnel in or outside detention centers are also a very grave
matter of concern, even if they are isolated cases. Furthermore, the
Committee is concerned by the recent rise in child prostitution and the
production and dissemination of pornographic materials involving children. In
this regard, the fact that no specific and appropriate legislation and
programs exist to prevent and combat sexual abuse and exploitation is a
serious concern to the Committee. READING ROOM: Libby Gomersall, The Sofia Echo, Aug 13 2007 sofiaecho.com/2007/08/13/655260_reading-room-bulgarias-working-girls [accessed 24 January
2011] In All of the girls I
have seen soliciting are over the age of consent, which is 14 in Bulgaria,
most are in their late teens and early 20s. Many are exceptionally attractive
making you double take as to whether they are actually “on the game” or just
innocently waiting for a lift. All of the girls I spoke to were extremely
friendly. “We work out of need,” 19-year-old Sonia recounts. “I can earn more
money doing this work than working a 13-hour shift in a bar in the resorts.
It is just work for me. I don’t really think about what I do.” The Protection
Project - Bulgaria [DOC] The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/bulgaria.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - According to a
recent study, among identified female victims of trafficking in Women are lured
into the industry through false job advertisements offering jobs as models,
dancers, and au pairs. Many of the girls recruited are orphans or come from
disadvantaged families, making them more vulnerable to the promises of
traffickers offering them work abroad.
Teenage girls are often kidnapped and, among the Roma minority,
frequently sold to traffickers by their families. - htcp Five Years After ECPAT: Fifth Report
on implementation of the Agenda for Action [DOC] ECPAT International,
November 2001 www.no-trafficking.org/content/web/05reading_rooms/five_years_after_stockholm.pdf [accessed 13
September 2011] [B]
COUNTRY UPDATES – Child Prostitution
Flourish in Novinite.com (Sofia
News Agency), March 5, 2007 www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=77482 [accessed 10 April
2011] Child prostitution
in Sex tourism is
mostly growing in countries where a sudden boom took place in the tourist
sector, not leaving the state enough time to take measures against child
exploitation. Country Information
Terre des Hommes via
its Internet platform against sexual exploitation of children in tourism
www.child-hood.com +www.child-hood.com/index.php?id=731&type=6&type=6 [accessed 10 April
2011] DESTINATION COMMERCIAL SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN IN TOURISM - Combating Human
Trafficking - Basic Education and
Policy Support Activity BEPS www.beps.net/child_labor/bulgaria.htm [accessed 10 April
2011] [photo caption] A common sight in DEAR PASSENGERS - THE DRIVER OFFERS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL ELITE GIRLS FOR YOUR PLEASURE Svetlana’s Journey Director: Michael Cory Davis, Screenplay: Michael Cory Davis, Bulgaria, 2004 -- 40
min, color www.cinema.bg/sff/2005/eng/movie.php?movieSid=334 [accessed 10 April
2011] www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um-O7nXMYnc [accessed 1 November
2016] Svetlana’s journey is a story about
“Stolen Innocence”. The story is a gruesome retelling through recollections
of a 13 yr. old girl after escaping the prison where she was held captive by
pimps. After losing her
mother, and having no other family Svetlana was forced to live in an
orphanage. She was adopted by a family who’s sole purpose was to acquire her
… she was tortured, manipulated, and abused by the “pimp couple”, so that she
became a shell of a body, used 15 times a day by various gentleman buyers. Neglected Children
Society (SNC) UN Interregional
Crime and Justice Research Institute - IRISEM - Organizations against
Trafficking and CSEC www.unicri.it/emerging_crimes/human_trafficking/irisem/irisem.php?page_=6 [accessed 10 April
2011] [scroll down to … NEGLECTED CHILDREN SOCIETY (SNC) ] The
aims of NCS include: Prevention
of violence against children, child abuse, child neglect, child prostitution
and child sexual trafficking; Supporting
children at social and criminal risk and Re-integration
of abused, neglected children and victims of commercial sexual exploitation
of children. Miss Humanity Velina Nacheva,
The Sofia Echo, Jan 15 2004 sofiaecho.com/2004/01/15/631113_miss-humanity [accessed 24 January
2011] "Magi" Vulchanova, Goodwill Ambassador and Face to Face Spokesperson,
has a unique mission in life, which she took on after being crowned Miss
Bulgaria 2000. Magi spends most of her time in Trafficking in
Children for Sexual Purposes ECPAT International
Newsletters, Issue No : 33
1/December/2000 www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/IRC/articles.asp?articleID=40&NewsID=12 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] EASTERN EUROPE - ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - BULGARIA [PDF] ECPAT 2005 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/Europe/Global_Monitoring_Report-BULGARIA.pdf [accessed 10 April
2011] There is no organised child sex tourism in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61641.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] CHILDREN
– The
MOI identified 398 children as "at risk" of being forced into
prostitution during the first nine months of the year, compared to 510 in
2004. Child prostitution reportedly was particularly common among Romani
girls; there were no known cases of boys engaged in prostitution In December 2004
the SACP reported that 625 children were known to be either living or working
on the streets and were primarily involved in begging, prostitution, or car
window washing. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
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