Bulgaria

There is no publicly available government data on child marriage in Bulgaria.

According to the Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office, 664 minor girls were illegally married in 2018, and similar figures were recorded in recent years.

According to a 2016 UNICEF study, girls from remote, segregated Romani communities in Bulgaria continue to marry at a young age. The cohabitation of young girls is also common in Romani areas, including Burgas, Varna, Haskovo, Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Sliven and Stara Zagora.

As of September 2020, the courts sentenced 85 adults for cohabiting with girls under the age of 16; 11 adults for cohabitating with girls younger than 14 and 11 parents for aiding and abetting the cohabitation.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that girls are somehow inferior to boys.

In Bulgaria, child marriage is also driven by:

● Poverty: A 2016 study shows that for some Reshetari and Koshnichari groups, child marriage is driven by poor living conditions and a lack of family finances.

● Level of education: Some girls drop out of school in order to take on household duties and marry, and some families reportedly lack the motivation to keep girls in school beyond primary level.

● Harmful practices: Some parents from Horahane Roma groups in Eastern Bulgaria reportedly marry their daughters because they are scared they might be stolen. According to UNICEF, decisions around marriage are often made by a girl’s grandmother or mother. There are reports of “bride markets” taking place in the city of Stara Zagora, where Kalaidzhi Roma clans “sell off” their daughters to male suitors.

● Traditional attitudes: A 2013 research highlights that social workers and teachers think that child marriage among Roma communities cannot be solved, and that such attitudes stand in the way of addressing the complexity of the situation.

● Pre-marital sex: In Nikola Kochev district, child marriage is reportedly considered “possible” if a girl becomes pregnant or engages in pre-marital sex. In the Shumen region, relationships between girls and boys are regularly practiced and considered acceptable as long as the girl maintains her virginity.

● Cohabitation: Early cohabitation or informal unions are common amongst the Roma community and are a common reason for child marriage.

Bulgaria has committed to ending child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Bulgarian government submitted a 2020 Voluntary National Review for the High Level Political Forum but it did not mention child marriage. The government has not submitted a Voluntary National Review in any High Level Political Forum since 2020.

Bulgaria co-sponsored the following Human Rights Council resolutions: the 2013 procedural resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2015 resolution on child, early and forced marriage, the 2017 resolution on recognising the need to address child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian contexts, the 2019 resolution on the consequences of child marriage, the 2021 resolution on child, early and forced marriage in times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2023 resolution on ending and preventing forced marriage. In 2014, Bulgaria also signed a joint statement at the Human Rights Council calling for a resolution on child marriage.

Bulgaria co-sponsored the 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 UN General Assembly resolutions on child, early and forced marriage.

Bulgaria ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has interpreted to recommend the establishment of a minimum age of marriage of 18, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1982, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

In 2020, the CEDAW Committee expressed concerns about the persistence of child and forced marriages, despite legislation prohibiting marriage under the age of 16, in particular affecting Roma girls. The Committee urged Bulgaria to:

● Prevent and eradicate child and forced marriage through coordinated action by competent authorities, non-governmental organisations, and the Roma community.

● Strengthen awareness raising campaigns.

● Establish mechanisms to detect cases of child and forced marriages.

● Ensure all cases of child and forced marriage are investigated and those responsible are prosecuted.

In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Dubravka Šimonović, highlighted that child marriage is a persistent practice in the country and very rarely leads to criminal proceedings.

During its 2024 review, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the government improve the collection, quality and analysis of data on child marriage and violence against children among other children’s rights violations. The Committee recommended that the government strengthen measures to prevent child marriage, particularly within the Roma community.

During its 2016 review, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Bulgaria establish a system to track all cases of child marriage within ethnic groups, particularly among Roma girls, and to provide survivors with shelter and rehabilitation.

During its 2015 Universal Periodic Review, Bulgaria agreed to examine recommendations to eliminate all forms of child marriage and raise the minimum age of marriage to 18.

At the London Girl Summit in July 2014, the government signed a charter committing to end child marriage by 2020.

The National Program for Prevention of Violence and Abuse of Children 2017-2020 was implemented to prevent and reduce the number of early cohabitation and child births.

The government has been criticised by NGOs for being “ineffective” in addressing child marriage as the number of cases remains unchanged each year, and for addressing it from an “ethnic Romani” perspective, rather than as a broader gender equality problem.

Three family centres are running programmes to prevent child marriages and promote access to secondary education for Roma adolescent girls. These programmes, which transform attitudes towards gender, have reached hundreds of Roma adolescents to date with health and education advice and support.

Under Article 6 of the Bulgarian Family Code 2006, the legal minimum age for marriage is 18 years for women and men. Under the Family Code 2009, in exceptional cases and with permission from the regional court, a person can enter marriage at 16. Some of the most common reasons for applying for marriage by children are cohabitation, pregnancy and childbirth.