Domestic Violence

My time in Bulgaria  where for over a year I was a victim of domestic abuse and violence at the hands of a Bulgarian man, I witnessed first hand the fear and helplessness of knowing there was nowhere to go and noone to turn to for help, not even the police!  Instead they saw me as the problem for constantly requesting them to do something about an issue that was nothing more than day to day life in their eyes, branding me a trouble maker trying to make a scandal out of nothing and presuming I was not normal and taunting me.  Subsequently warning me from calling them again with implied threats.

This following article sadly illustrates the domestic abuse and violence issues and the challenges in Bulgaria to change a mindset of an entire culture where not only does this occur frequently, most perpetrators and victims (or the police) are not even aware that its abuse or wrong and an infringement of their basic rights as a human being.

July 28, 2018
Yoan Stanev

Human rights groups in Bulgaria have blasted a decision by the country’s Constitutional Court declaring an international convention protecting women and children from domestic violence unconstitutional.

Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ruled on July 27 that the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence and abuse Against Women and children Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, contradicts the country’s constitution and thus will not be ratified.