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violence and exploitation, children victims of trafficking, victims of crime, children in
internet. The Strategy envisions the adoption, among others, of special measures for
children who are victims of any form of abuse, violence and exploitation. Two years after
its adoption, the implementation of the Strategy will be assessed under a special project of
the SACP
In 2010, the SACP prepared a draft of a National Plan on Prevention of Violence and Abuse
of Children/ 2010- 2013/, aimed at better interaction of the institutions in cases of
violence, including better coordination when crisis intervention is needed.
Recently, the Council of Ministers adopted the 2011 National Programme for Child
Protection, where one of the challenges will be fighting sexual abuse of children through
computer systems.
In 2010 Sofia Municipality adopted its Strategy for Development of social services for
Children and Family- 2010- 2013, which will comprise also services for children in
situation of violence.
We observe that in the last two years the plans and programmes on protection of children
are more and more connected by the government with the plans on gender equality, and
more specifically with the section “ Protection against gender- based violence”.
c/ Prevention
With an amendment from 2009 of the Regulation for implementation of the Child Protection
Act, a new Chapter 8 was created – “ for
information, consultation and help of children through a Call centre with national free
telephone line 116111. The line is at the SACP and is currently operated by the NGO
“Animus”.
Through this telephone line children can benefit from psychological counseling, can get
information, including about the nearest services at local level, children at risk can be
identified. In addition coordination between the institutions can be improved. In cases of
identification of a child at risk, the case is immediately referred to the respective Directorate
“Social Assistance” and in case of immediate threat for life and health of the child, the case is
referred to telephone 112 of the services for urgent response. The staff of the centre
prepares periodical and annual analyses and assessments of the functioning of the
telephone line for the Chair of the SACP.
In March 2010, the web site of the National telephone line was initiated. 84 The figures for
2010 are as follows: 66 366 calls were registered and the number of consultations was
13 695. We note that only in March, 2011 the received calls were 4319 and the
consultations- 1246. From the statistics of the line for 2010, about 10% of the calls was
about violence suffered by children.
84 www.116111.bg
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