BULGARIA: Children's Rights in the UN Special Procedures' Reports

Summary: This report extracts mentions of children's rights issues in the reports of the UN Special Procedures. This does not include reports of child specific Special Procedures, such as the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, which are available as separate reports.

Please note that the language may have been edited in places for the purpose of clarity

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Independent expert on minority issues

A/HRC/19/56/Add.2

Country visit: 4 and 11 July

Report published: 3 January  2012

Legislative Background: Bulgarian is the official language, however article 36 (2) of the Constitution states that “citizens whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian shall have the right to study and use their own language alongside the compulsory study of the Bulgarian language.” However, this is not interpreted as providing the right for minorities to receive education in their mother tongue as the language of instruction. Minority languages can be studied as “selected subjects” where a sufficient minimum number of students make the choice. Bulgaria has not signed or ratified the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages which requires the provision of education in regional or minority languages and the provision of judicial administrative and public services in minority languages (para 10).

The Government’s position not to allow the use of mother tongue languages as the language of instruction in schools, particularly in regions where minorities are a majority or constitute a large percentage of the population, is a concern for minorities, including the Roma, Turkish Muslims and Macedonians. Bilingual education commencing in the early years of schooling would enable children to become proficient in their mother tongue as well as in Bulgarian. Furthermore, it would enable them to maintain their ethnic and linguistic identity and help minority pupils to achieve positive educational outcomes. The Government is urged to consider introducing bilingual education and to ratify the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (para 97).

Education: Roma children consistently underperform in educational outcomes, compared to other children; they have high drop-out rates and high levels of illiteracy. De facto segregated Roma schools remain a significant barrier to improving the educational outcomes of Roma children. Article 29 (1) of the 2004 Protection against Discrimination Act requires the Minister of Education, Youth and Sciences and local Government bodies to take such measures as are necessary to exclude racial segregation in educational institutions. However, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the European Roma Rights Centre reported that between 44 to 70 per cent of Roma students attend residentially segregated schools, either in rural Roma settlements or in segregated inner-city ghettos. Relative to mainstream Bulgarian schools, such segregated schools have poor infrastructure and facilities and provide a generally lower quality of education (para 24).

Many Roma start school without a proper grasp of Bulgarian since they commonly speak Romany or Turkish in their community interactions; this leaves them disadvantaged from the early years of education. The 2011 census data revealed that 85 per cent of Roma identified Roma as their mother tongue. One Roma person referred to a “lost generation” of those who failed in education partly due to a lack of facility with the Bulgarian language. Roma girls frequently drop out of school at a young age because of early marriage and the priority given to the education of boys. Consequently, they often have particularly poor educational outcomes at post-primary levels compared to boys and men in Roma communities. (para 25).

Enrolment levels for Roma children are much lower than the average at all levels of education. According to the World Bank, at least four out of five working-age men in the majority population completed secondary education compared to less than one in five Roma men. Education levels among women are even lower. While at least seven out of ten women in the majority population completed secondary or tertiary education, no more than one in ten Roma women did. Education enrolment rates are improving, but remain far from encouraging. In 2010, among 15-18 year olds, only approximately half of Roma men and one third of Roma women were still enrolled in school (compared with nine out of ten in the majority population) (para 26).

According to research quoted by the European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Bulgaria’s early school-leaving rate, which was 14.7 per cent in 2009, is close to the EU average, but is particularly high among Roma. The Open Society Institute put it at 43 per cent in 2008.18 The results of the 2011 census reveal that among those identifying as belonging to the Roma ethnic group, 23.2 per cent do not attend school, compared to 5.6 per cent of ethnic Bulgarians; 11.8 per cent of Roma are illiterate, compared to 0.5 per cent of ethnic Bulgarians (para 27).

The Government pointed out to the independent expert that there has never been a policy of school segregation, de jure or de facto, of Roma children in the national education system, therefore the term “segregation” is inaccurate. Furthermore it considers assertions that infrastructure and facilities in predominantly Roma schools are inferior to be questionable. It asserted that poor school attendance by Roma children and high drop-out rates are due mainly to traditions and strong pressure from within the community. It considers that the role of parents is crucial and that change must come from within the Roma communities (para 28).

Article 9 (1) of the Public Education Act gives parents or guardians the right to choose the school that their child(ren) will attend. Previously, children were restricted to attending the school in their locality, which was an important driver for segregation in education. However, in practice, significant obstacles remain to achieving desegregation, including schools that defiantly refuse to register Roma children; lack of transport to schools outside Roma ghettos; resistance from Roma parents to send their children to mixed schools where they fear they will face discrimination or will not receive an education appropriate to their culture; and failure to enforce the desegregation policy or penalize municipal authorities that fail to meet commitments (para 29).

The Strategy for Educational Integration of Children and Pupils from Ethnic Minorities was approved in 2004 and updated in 2010 as part of reforms to the national educational system to improve the quality of education for all children. Council of Ministers Order No. 4 of 11 January 2005 established the Centre for Educational Integration of Children and Young People from the Minorities (COIDUEM) to support the implementation of the Government policy regarding the educational needs of minority children. Three main strategic objectives form the focus of the Centre’s activities: ensuring equal access to quality education of children and young people from the ethnic minorities and their effective integration in normative documents and educational practice; preservation and development of the cultural identity of children from ethnic minorities; and creation of prerequisites for successful socialization of children and young people from ethnic minorities and a favourable social and psychological climate (para 30).

Under Bulgaria’s National Action Plan for Roma Inclusion (2005-2015), education is the first priority area addressed; the stated goal being to guarantee the right to equal access to quality education to children and pupils from the Roma minority. Among stated targets is the “desegregation of schools and kindergartens in the detached Roma quarters.” Activities projected over the period include “moving the children out of the Roma quarters and closing the segregated schools and kindergartens. The necessary transportation will be provided taking into consideration the parents’ preferences; adequate integration and inclusion of Roma children in a multi-ethnic environment”(para 31).

Consultations with municipal authorities in Pazardzhik District revealed the institutional belief that a tipping point exists with regard to the number of Roma children in each classroom. One regional official noted that when the number rises above four or five, tensions arise and non-Roma parents begin to remove their children from school. Nevertheless, another school principal highlighted that his school was successfully achieving a 50-50 student body of Roma and non-Roma pupils, which indicates that institutional perceptions about tensions caused by Roma pupils may be overstated and potentially hampering integration efforts. It was noted that Roma parents are more likely to send their children to mixed schools with a higher percentage of Roma children (para 32).

Most children who attend special schools for those with learning difficulties and residential care institutions for orphans are Roma, although many reportedly have no learning impairment and have living parents. The percentage of Roma children in the children’s homes visited by researchers was 63 per cent. Some parents living in poverty reportedly abandon or give up their children to such institutions for either domestic or international adoption. If the mother cannot be found or parents do not visit a child for six months the child becomes eligible for adoption. In 2010, the Government adopted a national strategy, “Vision of Deinstitutionalization of Children in Bulgaria,” and an action plan which were seen as an important step towards improving the situation. Roma boys form the majority of those detained in juvenile detention facilities. Regulation No. 6 (2002) of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sciences explicitly forbids the enrolment of pupils with normal intellectual capabilities in establishments for children with disabilities and its implementation is monitored by the Commission for Protection and Discrimination (para 33).

The Government should undertake research and collect data on the extent of segregation of Roma with regard to education, and use that data to set measurable targets to evaluate its programmatic initiatives against actual results. The initiatives undertaken to transport children daily to attend mixed schools outside Roma ghettos and to provide school meals and support services have been implemented largely by a small number of poorly resourced Roma NGOs. The lion’s share of their funding comes from international sources together with a small percentage of Government contributions. NGOs bear much of the burden of implementing the desegregation policies endorsed by the Government, but which it fails to fully lead or fund in practice (para 81).

The Government must play a greater leadership role in school desegregation and intensify State-supported desegregation efforts. Existing policies and programmes should be consistently and systematically implemented, and the results monitored against clearly established targets for desegregation. Binding legislation should be developed to ensure public and municipal authorities take action to meet targets for Roma desegregation. Appropriate penalties should be imposed for non-compliance and local-level resistance to Roma integration. Outreach to Roma communities and wider society should be an important element of a desegregation strategy so as to build trust, confidence and understanding on the part of all communities (para 82).

Health: According to data by the National Statistics Institute for 2003, child mortality is 9.9/1000 among Bulgarians; 17/1000 among those of Turkish background, and 28/1000 among the Roma. The National Network of Health Mediators was founded in 2007. In 2008-2011, 105 mediators were appointed in 57 municipalities through delegated budgets. Health mediators work with and in communities and build relationships which allow them to assess and respond to needs. They provide services, including child protection (paras 40, 44).

Housing: Roma and NGO representatives described to the independent expert the physical and social barriers and isolation experienced in segregated communities which commonly have no public transport links. The elderly, disabled or those with young children face particularly severe difficulties to leave the ghetto. The transportation difficulties have created profound problems, for example, for Roma children to attend mixed schools in non-Roma localities without the provision of regular, free bus services (para 47).

Religious minorities:  Some ethnic Turkish representatives expressed frustration that their children do not have the option to study in their mother tongue (i.e., Turkish as the language of instruction) and can only study Turkish as an elective. The Government highlighted that Turkish is taught as a selected subject for four hours a week up to Grade 8. Experts in Turkish are employed by regional Inspectorates in regions that have a high number of Turkish pupils (para 61).

 

Independent Expert on human rights and extreme poverty

Visit made from 11 - 18 November 1998

Issues raised:

Vulnerable groups of children: Nevertheless, insufficient attention is paid to certain vulnerable groups such as the disabled, street children, those who have no access to school and Gypsy children, as well as very poor women - female unemployment in Bulgaria having risen from 52 per cent to 68 per cent. (Paragraph 102).

 


Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul

(A/HRC/20/19/Add.2)

Country visit: 9 to 16 May 2011
Report published: 21 May 2012

No mention of children's rights.

 


Requested visits

  • Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion (requested in 2006)

Countries

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