site.btaBulgarian Helsinki Committee Finds Mass Violence Against Children in Correctional, Boarding Schools

Bulgarian Helsinki Committee Finds Mass Violence Against Children in Correctional, Boarding Schools


Sofia, December 16 (BTA) - A check of the Bulgarian Helsinki
Committee (BHC) found mass cases of direct and indirect physical
 violence against children in correctional and boarding schools
in Bulgaria, Zheni Ivanova of the BHC said at a BTA-hosted news
conference Tuesday.
 
In Ivanova's words, the acts of physical violence are committed
in secret, in isolated rooms or outside the institutions'
buildings. She said that the biggest large-scale case of
violence was established at the Social Pedagogy Boarding School
in Straldzha (Eastern Bulgaria), where the children have been
demonstratively subjected  to cruel group beatings by the
personnel.

The BHC's check established violence by personnel against
children, as well as between the children themselves. In
Ivanova's words, the most shocking examples of mental abuse are
those in the boarding schools where children have been forced to
 steal. A striking example is the case of a girl from the
correctional boarding school in Podem (Northern Bulgaria), who
was forced to go around the building in her underwear. A boy
from the Social Pedagogy Boarding School in Straldzha remained
tied to a bench all day, Ivanova added. In both cases, the
children were punished for attempted escape.
  
The BHC's check also established that the children are often
accommodated in unacceptable living conditions, they have
limited access to food, and some of the institutions do not give
 them any access to education. The children also do not have
access to adequate medical assistance, because most of the
institutions do not have permanent medical specialists.