Study of violence against children in Bulgaria

About

“Violence against children can and must be prevented. A key step towards the prevention of violence is the collection of reliable data to assist in the development of policies, programs and measures to support children and parents, as well as to analyse their implementation.”,

- said Dr. Jane Muita, UNICEF Representative for Bulgaria.

• One in two children (47%) has experienced some form of violence by the age of 18.
• Emotional violence is the most common kind (45.9%), followed by physical violence (31.2%), sexual abuse (15.6%) and neglect (10.5%).
• Violence is most common among children at school (38.3%), followed by that in the community (37.6%) and at home (30.9%).
• One in three children (34.8%) states that they feel in danger at home, at school or in the community.

Children and young people who have experienced violence or neglect, and those who feel in danger, have a much lower level of well-being than other children. This is revealed by evidence from a nation-wide representative survey commissioned by UNICEF to the international research company Coram International, with the data collection in Bulgaria carried out by the ESTAT agency.

The survey is the first comprehensive survey of its kind in Bulgaria, as it includes data collection on all forms of violence against children in different types of environments, as well as a thorough assessment of the capacity of the relevant services to prevent and counteract this phenomenon.

It was conducted in the period 2019–2020 and included a nation-wide representative sample of households, covering 1,174 children aged 13–17, 837 young people aged 18–25 and 1,411 adults, as well as a survey among 887 professionals – teachers, social workers, prosecutors and magistrates, health professionals and police officers.  

>> See the two parts of the full report with the results of the survey here – Part one and Part two.

>> Download the Report Summary here.