The President of the State Agency for Child Protection Eva Jecheva and the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria signed an agreement for partnership and information exchange on August 1, 2014.
The agreement aims at improving the cooperation and integration between the both institutions. This will be achieved through periodic information exchange, needed to implement and develop the state policy for child protection, to plan adequate measures and activities to ensure children rights respect.
During the recent years, the SACP faced challenges, related to the work with certain groups of people – children – refugees, infants and minors, pregnant women, children in conflict with the law or inveigled in parent’s conflicts, children of parents – emigrants. Considering the Prosecutor’s Office expertise, it is necessary to involve it, when planning certain measures and actions.
It is important to regulate the participation of Prosecutor’s Office representatives in the preparation, development and discussion of projects of legislative acts and their complementation, which are in the field of child protection and which have been discussed during working groups and the National Council for Child Protection.
The SACP developed in 2010 a Coordination mechanism to interact at work in cases of children, victims or in risk of violation and to cooperate in crisis intervention, basing on a multidisciplinary approach and team work, aiming at decision making in the child’s best interest. Analyze of the current practice shows that the prosecutors’ participation in this team meetings is really important, considering their professional expertise.
The receiving of Prosecutor’s Office information on the pre-trial proceedings and convicted persons is crucial to plan measures and actions to combat the social phenomenon “children having children”. SACP completed in the end of 2013 inspections in 39 maternity wards in the country and in 21 “Social assistance” departments. The investigation showed that the local Prosecutor’s Offices are informed about the majority of the early marriage cases, but for the most part of them have been received refusal to initiate trial proceedings.
The agreement also regulates the developed good inter-institutional cooperation in the execution of Agency’s controlling activity. In recent years, by order of the Supreme Administrative Prosecution Office are carried out a number of planned inspections of certain sites – special schools for children with deviant behavior, specialized institutions for children, with the participation of prosecutors from the relevant district Prosecutor’s Offices on the ground.
The obtained feedback on each of the both institutions, related to questions on cases of children abused or at risk of violence, and the results of the inspection or investigation are essential to plan the future work on these cases and to provide methodological support to social workers or social service providers in their work on such cases.
For its part the SACP commits to provide information on the results of its monitoring activities, carried out examinations and studies on specific priority areas, related to the formation of specific policies for the child.
Photo: photl.com/Bhutros Iaco
