site.bta National Network for Children Calls for Urgent Child Protection Measures in Social Boarding Schools

National Network for Children Calls for Urgent Child Protection Measures in Social Boarding Schools

Sofia, January 6 (BTA) - The non-governmental National Network for Children (NNC), which brings together 131 civil-society organizations and like-minded supporters, calls for urgent measures to protect children in social boarding schools and for the formation of teams to draw up plans for their closure, the NNC said on Wednesday.

Social boarding schools are educational establishments for indigent, neglected or deviant children aged 7 to 18.

The NNC has formulated its demands in a letter to the ministers of education, justice, labour and social policy, interior and health, to the Director of the Social Assistance Agency, to the Chair of the State Agency for Child Protection (SACP), and to the National Ombudsman.

"More than two years after French volunteers and NGOs submitted alerts about violence against children at social boarding schools, which have been confirmed by checks of the SACP and the Ombudsman, the NNC does not yet see a systematic change in the manner in which the children are treated and in which the institutions responsible for them interact," the press release says.

NNC-affiliated organizations warn about cases of children diagnosed with diseases, disabilities and mental disorders, who are unsuitable for placement at a social boarding school but must be accommodated in an environment with specialized care arrangements, about children who spend more than three years at a social boarding school or as many as five or seven years. The NGOs say quite a few of the children are illiterate and schooling is perfunctory, despite the "special school" status of the social boarding schools. The NNC also alert about children who are not issued identity documents and who become victims of sexual abuse.

The National Network for Children insists on the launch of procedures to end the stay of all children who have spent more than three years at a social boarding school and on a review of all measures, actions taken and results achieved.

The NNC also urges for the formation of two interinstitutional and multidisciplinary teams, involving external experts and NGO representatives, to prepare individual plans for the closure of the two social boarding schools. The NGOs demand a repeal of the Control of Juvenile Anti-Social Behaviour Act and an adoption of a new Juvenile Justice Act.