Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: Children in Bulgaria are often deprived
of their basic rights by police, the
very people who are supposed to protect
them. Human Rights Watch's summary of the publication
Police Violence and Arbitrary Confinement
Children in Bulgaria are often deprived of their basic rights by
police, the very people who are supposed to protect them. After
conducting a fact-finding mission to Bulgaria in the spring of 1996,
Human Rights Watch concludes that street children are often subjected
to physical abuse and other mistreatment by police, both on the
street and in police lockups, and by skinhead gangs, who brutally
attack the children because of their Roma (Gypsy) ethnic identity.
Once detained by police, children fall victim to gross procedural
inadequacies in the juvenile justice system in Bulgaria. Through
administrative bodies, known as Local Commissions for Combating
Juvenile Delinquency, children may be sentenced to confinement in one
of eleven Labor Education Schools (the Bulgarian equivalent of
juvenile reform institutions), for their "reeducation." The practice
of confining children to these essentially penal institutions,
without due process, violates international law. Further, the
conditions in Labor Education Schools, where children may be confined
for up to three years, are notoriously harsh and do little to advance
the development of the child's overall well-being, and do much to
impede it. This report examines both police mistreatment and abuse of
street children, and the Labor Education School system in Bulgaria.