Bulgaria’s first crisis centre for child victims of trafficking unveiled in Balvan on Thursday

Bulgaria’s first crisis centre for child victims of trafficking was unveiled in Balvan on Thursday, 21 of September. The facility has been built by the local chapter of the Geneva-based International Social Service in partnership with Veliko Turnovo Municipality and the St John of Rila Association in Balvan.

It will house ten children aged between 7 and 18 years, who will receive round-the-clock care and assistance from social workers, teachers, psychologists, medical professionals and auxiliary personnel.

The centre was inaugurated by Labour and Social Policy Minister Emilia Maslarova in the presence of Deputy Interior Minister Kamen Penkov, State Agency for Child Protection (SACP) President Shirin Mestan and Norbert Ceipek, head of a children’s crisis centre in Vienna.

The ceremony took place on the sidelines of a national conference on European standards for child protection from violence, which opened in Veliko Turnovo earlier in the day. The conference is part of a national child assistance campaign organized under a three-year Council of Europe programme.

According to information of the Labour and Social Policy Ministry, 35 Bulgarian child victims of trafficking have been repatriated from various European countries so far this year. The authorities have recommended placement in a family environment for 23 of these children, institutionalized another 11 children, and returned 4 to their families.

Penkov said the trafficking of Bulgarian children who were forced to engage in pickpocketing in Vienna has been stopped completely thanks to joint action of Bulgarian and Austrian services.

According to Ceipek, Austrian police made over 600 detentions of 200 young Bulgarian pickpockets in Vienna in 2005. As a result of joint action of the Bulgarian and Austrian authorities, no such delinquents from Bulgaria have been detained in the city since March 2006. The daily number of pickpocketing cases registered in Vienna has dropped from 200 in 2005 to just 20 in 2006, and now the offenders are all local people, Ceipek said.

Penkov added that the Bulgarian authorities have begun to withhold the international travel passports of Bulgarians under 18 years of age who are found to have committed offences abroad.

So far this year, SACP President Mestan has made 102 recommendations to the Interior Ministry to withhold the international travel passports of people under 18 years of age. She said the measure has a preventive effect on child trafficking.

After a child spends six months in a crisis centre, social workers continue to assist them outside the centre, Mestan further said. If a family has a bad influence on a child, the child is placed in the care of other relatives or a foster family.

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