Bulgaria Govt to Draft New Children, Family Act

Bulgaria's Education Minister Sergey Ignatov thinks that repressive measures are not a solution to child abuse but only exacerbate the problem. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian government will draft a new act on children and family by the end of 2010, announced Bulgaria's Labor and Social Policy Minister.

Minister Totyo Mladenov, who attended Thursday a conference entitled “To protect the children of Bulgaria – child and youth abuse,” said that Bulgaria should have one single institution to deal with child issues, not dozens of small organizations as is the case at present.

Bulgaria's Education Minister Sergey Ignatov also attended the conference and pointed out that psychological child abuse is one of the most common in Bulgaria. “The problem is that adults often overlook such abuse and act only in cases of severe physical abuse, which is not as common as psychological or socially-preconditioned child abuse.”

Minister Ignatov also explained that “schools alone cannot be the only ones to counteract violence against children, there should be a network of institutions to tackle the problem. Repressive measures only exacerbate the issue and make people even more violent.”

A work group of Bulgarian MPs, representatives of different Bulgarian institutions and non-government organizations has already been set up and will cooperate on the draft of the new act.

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