Human Trafficking in [Bulgaria] [other countries]Street Children in [Bulgaria Child Prostitution in [Bulgaria] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children The Republic of Bulgaria [map], located in SE Europe on the E Balkan
Peninsula, is bounded by the Black Sea (E), by Romania (N), by Serbia and Montenegro
and Macedonia (W), by Greece (S), and by European Turkey (SE). Its capital city is |
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accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation
in Quick
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Gender, Country ( UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - Several Bulgarian localities established programs
integrating children of Roma ethnicity into schools. In order to increase
Roma attendance, the government and NGOs provide subsidies for schooling
expenses such as school lunches, books, and tuition fees. With support from USAID,
the Government of Bulgaria conducts additional ethnic integration
efforts. The government has also
provided funding for additional teaching assistants, usually from minority
ethnic groups, to be placed in classrooms with Roma and Turkish
students. The World Bank is funding a
child welfare reform project in Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - Widespread poverty led many
Romani children to turn to begging, prostitution, and petty crime on the
streets. 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; approximately 400 of these children were
believed to be exploited for labor by adults, although experts believed that
actual figures were higher. There were reports that approximately 225
children lived and worked on the streets without the involvement of a
trafficker, pimp, or other third party. Many of these children had been
abandoned by their parents or sent by their families to urban areas to seek
work. The NSI reported a 68 percent increase from
2003 to 2004 in the number of children registered by police for vagrancy and
begging: 1,785 children in 2004, compared to 1,059 in 2003. As part of the
national strategy for street children, SACP
continued implementing the programs it initiated in 2003 to address the
situation of street children. One of these programs included putting street
children in protective custody. In the first nine months of the year, the MOI placed 274 children involved in begging and vagrancy
in five special shelters for street children; in 2004 496 such children were
sent to these shelters. The shelters were intended to serve more as immediate
protective resources than facilities for long‑term or intermediate
care. They provided food, bathing facilities, and basic medical care, but
children were usually not kept for more than 24 hours unless remanded to
protective custody by the special order of a prosecutor Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 1997 [11] With regard to the
implementation of article 4 of the Convention, the Committee notes with
concern the inadequacy of measures taken and the insufficient capacity of
existing bodies, including the Youth and Children Committee, to ensure the
implementation of children's economic, social and cultural rights to the
maximum extent of available resources. The Committee is particularly
concerned at the insufficient policies, measures and programs for the
protection of the rights of the most vulnerable children, especially children
living in poverty, children born out of wedlock, abandoned children, disabled
children, children who are victims of abuse, children belonging to minority
groups, especially Roma, and children who, in order to survive, are living
and/or working in the streets. Human
Rights Watch - Street Children In Bulgaria, Guatemala, India, and Kenya, Human Rights Watch has
reported that police violence against street children is pervasive, and
impunity is the norm. The failure of law enforcement bodies to promptly and
effectively investigate and prosecute cases of abuse against street children
allows the violence to continue. Establishing police accountability is
further hampered by the fact that street children often have no recourse but
to complain directly to police about police abuses. The threat of police
reprisals against them serves as a serious deterrent to any child coming
forward to testify or make a complaint against an officer. Bourgas new komplex to help children Bourgas mayor Yoan
Kostadinov officiated at the April 12 opening of a
new day care centre for street children. The main goal of the centre will
be to assist children who live and work on the streets and to prevent them from
dropping out of school. It will offer emergency help to street children,
including clothes, food and shelter. WHAT WAS
THE PURPOSE FOR CREATING THE STREET CHILDREN PROGRAM? - The children and youth are free
to come and leave whenever they want since it's not an orphanage or an
institution. However, once there they get assistance, food, shelter where
they can spend the night, and they have educators who teach them how to read,
write, and to draw. Since a normal Bulgarian school is situated nearby, the
educators help them go to school so that some capable children are sent there
and others are sent to boarding schools in the country. Basically out of 100
percent a third are happy kids being educated, a
third go back to their families, and unfortunately a third go back to the
streets. Once on the streets they are
open to all the violence and horrible things that happen such as skinheads,
child prostitution, and drugs. These incidents do not only occur in Faith, Hope and Love Center
for Street Children SOCIAL
REHABILITATION.
Street life impedes the formation of a positive self-conception, leads to
interpersonal relationship problems, to the formation of false perceptions
about the structure and functions of society. The Center provides qualified
psychological and social assistance for overcoming the above consequences.
The daily routine is aimed at forming basic notions of social life, of
understanding and learning moral norms, rules and values, interpersonal
communication skills corresponding to the children's age, motivation for
maintenance of a pro-social behavior. Children of Bulgaria -
Police Violence and Arbitrary Confinement Children in Save the
Children Moves in to Help Children in Bulgaria - A Country in Crisis Parents who cannot afford to buy
enough food and fuel to feed and warm their children are faced with one
terrible way out: many have already put their offspring into the hundreds of
state orphanages, countless others will do so in the
months ahead. These institutions, some well run, some dilapidated and dirty,
are themselves facing a crisis as the government's ability to maintain them declines. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Bulgaria] [other countries]Street Children in [Bulgaria Child Prostitution in [Bulgaria] [other countries]