Vazrazhdane MP Tsveta Rangelova took part in the roundtable Measures to Combat Sexual Harassment, Violence and Trafficking of Children, organized by civil and parent organizations at the National Assembly on Tuesday.
Parent organizations outlined a number of troubling issues and pointed out numerous cases, which were in the public focus, of particularly audacious crimes in which children are the victims of sexual or physical violence. The trend of children being the victims of sexual and physical violence in the family is particularly worrying.
"Often the reasons for these crimes are the complete degradation of a part of the society we live in, the family’s abdication from caring for the child in search only of satisfying the child’s financial needs; promiscuous relationships, irresponsible partner changes - those partners often turn out to be the ones who sexually or physically abuse the children; undermining the authority of teachers. Our children live in a jungle that we adults have created or whose creation we have allowed, without objecting to it, in the past decades," Rangelova said.
In the discussion, the MP presented the highlights of Vazrazhdane's proposal for amendments to the Criminal Code.
“Society is often dissatisfied with the low sentences imposed by the court for these monstrous crimes. This is due to the limitations in the law, from which the court cannot escape. With our bill, we aim to change both the shorter and longer sentence sanctions for these crimes,” Rangelova said during the discussion, adding: “It is time to stop pretending that we do not see the problem. We are no longer even talking about isolated cases. Unfortunately, they are a daily occurrence.”
Among the novelties in the bill is the introduction of qualifying circumstances when the violence is committed by a family member or cohabiting partner of the parent of the child, victim of a crime. “When the abuser is part of the family, the child very often has no one to protect him, the truth is revealed with difficulty, slowly, which implies a long period of time in which the child is subjected to a crime,” she added.
Rangelova appealed to the attendees: "We must care for children’s safety. If we do not do the necessary today, tomorrow we will be ashamed of our silence."
/KT/
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