site.btaParliament Rejects Amendments to Child Protection Act on First Reading

A bill to amend the Child Protection Act sponsored by There Is Such a People (TISP) was rejected on first reading after more than two hours of debate in Parliament on Wednesday with 73 MPs were in favour, 51 against and 48 abstained.

In favour voted 10 MPs from GERB-UDF, 33 from Vazrazhdane, 19 from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, 10 from TISP and one independent MP. Against the texts were one from GERB-UDF, 22 from Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), 28 from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). Twenty-one GERB-UDF MPs, 26 from CC-DB and one from the MRF abstained.

The bill proposed banning the distribution of various promotional materials and the holding of events or trainings on health, gender and social issues that do not comply with the generally accepted moral and ethical norms of the concept of biological gender in society and are not approved by the Ministry of Education and Science on the premises of pre-school and school establishments.

Another proposal in the bill was banning the dissemination of information materials and events related to the promotion or early determination of the gender identity of children other than biological, as well as the provision of medical services to children involving hormone therapy or intervention that does not correspond to their biological gender.

Transitional and final provisions were meant to amend the Health Act to prohibit the direct advertising and performance of medical services involving hormonal or other medical gender reassignment therapy among persons under 18.