Women’s rights and gender discrimination
The Equality between Men and Women Bill was approved for submission to parliament in early 2009. It includes the adoption of temporary special measures for equality between the sexes, the creation of a special body within the government, which will carry out on ongoing basis the policy on gender issues, the keeping of statistics by gender and other legislative measures aimed at contributing to policy institutionalisation. The bill was not voted due to the expiration of the 40th National Assembly’s term. Without it, the implementation of the Strategy for Equality between Men and Women (2009-2015) and of the respective National Plan for 2009 was void of an implementation and monitoring mechanism. They were only formally reported at the meetings of the National Council on Equality, without any budget, analysis and monitoring of what is being done and what isn’t.
The elections for European and national parliament in the summer of 2009 were held without a special legislation on encouraging women’s involvement in politics and decision-making. As a result of the European Parliament’s campaign in favour of a 50:50 representation of men and women at the European Parliament and of the mixed election system, Bulgaria ranked among the countries with the most encouraging results in terms of the share of women of their members of the European Parliament (45%). At the national parliamentary elections, however, the economic and party interests had a negative effect on equality. The share of the women in the 41st National Assembly is approximately 22% of all members of parliament. The women in government are only 17%. A positive development was the election for the first time of a woman, Tsetska Tsacheva, as chair of the National Assembly, while in November Yordanka Fandakova was elected as the first female mayor of Sofia.
In 2009, the Labour Code was amended to include paternity leave [1] The Protection Against Discrimination Act (PADA) now includes guarantees for both the mother and the father with regard to the preservation of the workplace after leave and of the benefits arising from improvements in remuneration and working conditions effected during the leave. Legislative changes were adopted at the end of 2009 that guarantee the protection against discrimination on the labour market for female workers or employees in the advanced stages of assisted reproductive treatment (in vitro). Their rights were made consistent with those of the pregnant female workers and employees and breast-feeding mothers.
The struggle for gender equality and the necessity of changes and of more effective protection of women against discrimination were not reflected in CPAD case law in 2009. Its review indicates that the CPAD does not perform its statutory obligations to ensure effective proceedings in protecting plaintiffs’ rights and to complete these proceedings within the statutory deadlines. In early 20o9, the CPAD terminated file No. 26/2008 against the Ministry of Interior. In violation of PADA, it took the CPAD nine months to collect the documents for the file. The complaint was withdrawn. The review of file No. 217/2008 on the dissemination of alcohol advertisements, which are abusive to the women was also slow and showed a lack of understanding of the essence of gender discrimination. In 2008, the CPAD proceedings were terminated and the file was sent to the Commission for User Protection. In early 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court sent the file back for a decision. Five months passed before the hearing was held. As of February 2010, the case remained open.
The lack of understanding of gender equality is confirmed in another CPAD decision of 2009. File No. 191/2009 was initiated on the attribute of “personal status.” The applicant, a mother of a 5-month-old baby, complained of the lack of a ramp on a staircase at a cashier’s office for utility bills. In its decision No. 3/13.01.2009 CPAD found a violation of the prohibition of discrimination against people with disabilities and against people with baby strollers. However, the CPAD did not discuss the existence of gender discrimination, although the plaintiff had clearly stated that she had addressed the Commission in the capacity of a mother of an infant aged 5 months.
The changes to the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act (PADVA), which were prepared in 2008, were adopted by the 41st National Assembly and promulgated in the State Gazette of 22 December 2009. The campaign of the Alliance for Protection against Domestic Violence [2] contributed to this process. The changes improved the effectiveness of the protection against domestic violence: the circle of the protected persons was expanded; the emotional and economic violence was explicitly included in the notion of domestic violence; violence in the presence of a child is now regarded as emotional and psychological violence against the child; the duration of the protection by court order was extended from 3 to 18 months; the conditions for the initiation of proceedings by representatives of the Social Assistance Agency were enhanced. The new provisions on state support and funding for the implementation measures for PADVA are extremely important to the effectives of the protection: annual adoption of the governmental programme on the prevention and protection against domestic violence; as of 2010, annual allocation of budget funds by the Ministry of Justice for NGO projects for prevention and protection of victims of domestic violence. The amendment of Article 296 of the Penal Code, which explicitly criminalised the failure to comply with court protection orders, also contributed to the more effective protection against domestic violence.
In 2009, in the cities with active NGOs the courts issued the immediate protection orders on a timely basis and the police were quick to enforce them. According to Criminal Police Directorate-General data, the total number of the protection orders issued in the country between January and November 2009 was more than 1,000; most of them were issued in Plovdiv, Sofia, Haskovo, Burgas, Varna and Pernik. Of the victims of domestic violence 88% were women, 10% were children and 2% were men.
The new Family Code was adopted in June 2009 and entered in force on 1 October 2009. Two major novelties in the draft Family Code had the potential to influence positively gender equality: the legal recognition of cohabitation and the liberalisation of the property relations between spouses. The second solution was included to some extent in the final version of the Family Code: together with common ownership it is possible to have a division of ownership and a regime regulated by a prenuptial agreement. In terms of the legalisation of cohabitation and some consequences from them, however, the conservative attitude supported by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church prevailed and the 40th National Assembly left to society a still narrow understanding of family, inconsistent with social realities.
The progress in the creation of the national mechanism for direction of victims of trafficking was a major achievement in the field of human trafficking. The mechanism is being developed by the Animus Association Foundation and the National Commission for Combating Trafficking, in cooperation with other governmental and non-governmental organisations. The standard procedures and measures for the protection of the victims were developed in 2009, together with a concept for the interested institutions providing protection services to the victims. The mechanism will allow the victims of trafficking to be directed and supported in selecting an organisation or an institution to address for the provision of social services, legal and psychological advice, protection in the penal process, compensation, etc. The goal is to have the mechanism adopted and financially secured by the government in 2010.
The centralised collection of data and statistics on human trafficking initiated by the National Commission for Combating Trafficking shows progress in this field.
The data on the victims and the penal proceedings from January through August 2008, collected by the commission in October 2009, indicate that the women are most affected by trafficking and that the trafficking aimed at sexual exploitation occurs most often.[3] Positive amendments were introduced in the Penal Code in April 2009 by the creation of a new Article 154a, which criminalized sexual abuse and intercourse with a prostituting minor. Another new provision (Article 159c of the Penal Code) criminalises the use of a trafficking victim for profligate activities. These provisions are expected to influence positively the prevention and the protection of the women and the girls from sexual exploitation.
[1] See Articles 13 and 14 of the Protection Against Discrimination Act.
[2] The Alliance was established in August 2009 by the main organisations dealing with this issue: Animus Association Foundation, Demetra Association (Burgas), SOS – Families at Risk Association (Varna), Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation (Sofia, Plovdiv and Haskovo), NAYA Association (Targovishte), P.U.L.S. Foundation (Pernik), Ekaterina Karavelova Association (Silistra), Open Door Center (Pleven) and the Bulgarian Fund for Women.
[3] See the website of the National Commission for Combatting Traficking: http://antitraffic.government.bg/images/stories/story_files/1256303292.pdf
