site.btaNGO Finds Some Improvement in Government's Care of Families, Children in 2024

For the first time since 2012, government institutions have improved their care of children and families, the non-governmental National Network for Children (NNC) found in its 2024 Report Card.

The Report Card was unveiled at Parliament building on Wednesday before members of the competent commissions, government institutions, local authorities and NGOs.

The expert evaluation is based on a survey of over 25 national central and local government institutions, analyses and assessments by 41 authors and seven external appraisers, and the opinion of over 3,200 children, young people and adults (parents and professionals) who were polled for the 2024 Report Card.

The government was awarded a grade of 3.59 for child and family care for 2024, up from 3.33 in 2023 and 3.18 in 2022.

This is the first of 13 editions of the NNC's annual monitoring report in which government institutions have scored a grade above 3.5 on a scale of 2 to 6 (the same system that is used to grade pupils' performance at school). Among the nine subject areas in which experts analyzed the progress in child policies and compliance with children's rights, the scores in Child Welfare and Early Childhood Development alone are lower than in the previous year, and all the rest are higher and, except for Child Health, approximate a grade of 4 (Child Participation, Family Environment and Alternative Care, Protection from All Forms of Violence, Justice for Children, Education, and Sports, Recreation and Leisure). 

The NNC found that at 32.2%, the share of children at risk of povery or social exclusion in Bulgaria is among the highest in the EU, where the average level is 21.6%.

In the subject area of Protection from All Forms of Violence, the government's score improved from previous years to 3.54 thanks to adopted amendments to the Protection against Domestic Violence Act intended to enhance law enforcement and establish guarantees for the protection of petitioners' rights, including child victims, experts pointed out.

The experts recommended to politicians to update and adopt a National Strategy for the Child (2024-2030) as a basis for inter-sectoral guaranteeing of children's rights and welfare and overall support for families with children in Bulgaria. They call for the introduction of benchmarks to measure financial investments in children and families when drafting the State budget in order to follow up the effectiveness of public spending in healthcare, education and the social system in terms of meeting the strategic targets in child and family policies. Another recommendation is to ensure operational autonomy of the State Agency for Child Protection: as recommended by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the State should vest the Agency with sufficient powers and should provide with adequate resources and a clear mandate to coordinate all activities related to the implementation of the Convention. The NNC attaches importance to the effective integration of the information systems and data on children so as to be able to identify clearly the demographic and social problems that affect them.