site.btaBulgaria Is Top Country in Terms of Children's Risk of Poverty

Bulgaria consistently ranks among the top countries in terms of children's risk of poverty and social exclusion, the National Network for Children (NNC) reported on Wednesday. One in three children in Bulgaria is at such risk, according to the NNC's 2023 Report Card.

The NNC presented the 12th edition of its annual report "What is the Average Government Score for Childcare?" to the National Assembly. On a scale of 2 to 6, where the former is a failing grade, and the latter is full marks, Bulgaria scored 3.33 for its care of Bulgarian children.

Report Card 2023 assessed the progress of government institutions in caring for Bulgarian children in eight areas: Welfare, Education, Health, Family Environment and Alternative Care, Early Childhood Development, Protection of Children from All Forms of Violence, Justice for Children, and Sports, Recreation and Leisure. The study is based on information provided by more than 25 national and local institutions, including ministries. The independent monitoring includes the analysis and evaluations of 30 authors and seven external evaluators. A special place in the report is given to the views of children and young people, and the people responsible for supporting them: parents, teachers, health and social workers.

The score in the Child Welfare section is the highest in the monitoring, thanks to tax breaks for parents, abolition of nursery fees, increased family allowances, etc. Welfare measures alone remain inadequate, because they are not implemented as part of an overall strategy that could lead to coordinated measures to bring about significant change, the report said.

Another conclusion is that there is no common vision of the priorities and policies needed in the area of child participation. Children in Bulgaria remain poorly informed about their own rights, mainly because there is a lack of comprehensible public information.

The report warned that the lack of a unified system for registering cases of violence against children was a persistent problem in 2022.

Cases of violence in schools against children continue to increase, however, only the more serious ones make it to the list of the Ministry of Education and the public. In the 2021/2022 school year, there were 1,498 incidents of physical bullying and 2,160 incidents of verbal aggression.

There is a positive trend towards increasing the number of psychologists and pedagogical counsellors in schools and kindergartens.