This year's campaign against domestic violence was directed to getting new legislation out of limbo and into action. Meanwhile, the scale of the problem remains hard to assess because victims are scared to speak out.

ELENA KODINOVA reports.



A 23-year old woman is waiting for her husband at noon at the square in front of the National Palace of Culture on the sunny day of May 6, 2003. She has run away from five years of abuse and domestic violence. She left her home in a small town in the country with only the clothes on her back. After that she spoke to her husband on the phone and he promised to meet her in Sofia and discuss divorce with her. He also promised to bring her a bag of clothes. So they are now to meet in the centre of the capital city to put an end to their mutual life, and consider their future, as well as the future of their five-year-old child.

The husband, however, has other ideas. Instead of shaking hands with his wife, he takes out a boar-hunting knife and slashes her throat in broad daylight in front of the eyes of dozens of witnesses. The fact that this happens in a crowded square saves the woman's life.

This woman is one of the many victims of violence who have found shelter and support with the Bulgarian Foundation for Gender Research (BFGR). The NGO, together with Bulgarian Foundation for Support of Women Victims of Violence "Nadya", Centre for Women's Studies and Policies, Bulgarian Centre for Gender Research, Women's Alliance for Development and Gender Project for Bulgaria, as well as NGOs from Pleven, Varna, Bourgas, Rousse and Targovishte, organised the annual initiative "Sixteen Days Against Violence", which ended on December 10. This year's 16 days were dedicated to the promotion of the draft legislation against violence against women.

The woman who was slashed in the centre of Sofia did not press charges against her husband, said Iliana Stoicvheva, the spokesperson for the BFGR. He was taken into custody by police because what he did is considered attempted murder. This is a criminal offence and it is covered by the Bulgarian Penal Code. There were witnesses to testify. But had it happened at home, he would have walked unpunished because usually women victims of domestic violence do not press charges against their husbands, Stoicheva said.

The BFGR is the author of the draft legislation against domestic violence that was tabled in Parliament on April 17 this year, but has yet not been approved. For the first time, it defines the phenomenon in legal terms as being "each act of physical, psychological or sexual violence, including the coercion into sexual relations, the forcible limitation of personal freedom and personal life committed against people who have been in a family or kinship relationship, intimate relations or inhabiting the same housing facility on the grounds above or for other reasons".

"The main aim of the act is to protect the victim and take it away from home," Stoicheva said. It provides for the police to be able to enter a private home between 10pm and 7am, which currently they have no right to do. It would become possible, if the new Act is approved, if there is any suspicion of domestic violence. The draft legislation also stipulates that if there is evidence of domestic violence, the violator should be immediately taken out of the home by the police. According to the draft, the court procedure should be fast and unobstructed by bureaucracy, because otherwise victims are endangered again. The act also envisages social rehabilitation provided and paid by the state for violators.

The 23-year-old woman from the above story was one of the most convincing arguments in the meeting with police, organised by the women's NGOs during the Sixteen Days Against Violence. She came to testify about her case and explain to the police officers how hard it is for women victims of domestic violence to seek justice and protection when police and other authorities refuse to help.

According to the BFGR, not only women fall victim to domestic violence. The foundation has also helped a man, who has been regularly physically abused by his wife. He was a man in his 30s, a former ranger. The torture started after he came back from a military mission in a foreign country. His wife was a small woman and when she started hitting him - usually in front of the children - he could not hit back because he was afraid he was going to hurt her badly. Seeing no counter action, she started hitting him with objects and kicking him in the genitals. "When he called our hotline for help we did not know what to do, because we predominantly help women and we do not have shelters for men," Stoicheva said. They advised him to go to a friend and immediately leave the home. According to the people from the BFGR, he had all signs of a regularly battered woman. He felt guilt, he was afraid that he would lose contact with his children, and he was not willing to press charges against his wife.

"Domestic violence distorts the psyche of the victim," psychotherapist and director of Animus Foundation, Maria Tchomarova, said at the closing news conference after the Sixteen Days against Violence Initiative. "They usually do not fight back, not because they like it but because this is a normal human instinct to make every effort that the violence ends as soon as possible. So, we have to be very careful how we work with these people and not try to intimidate them further and make them feel any more guilty than they already feel."

According to her, the same phenomenon is observed with women victims of trafficking and forced prostitution. "After four to six months of violence they put up with their new identity and start considering that this is the only outcome for them. They feel ashamed to admit what they have been through, they thinks that their only option is to continue being prostitutes as they have no chances for normal life. So, they become voluntary prostitutes. Which does not mean that they are not victims," Tchomarova said.

Bulgarian NGOs for protection of women and other victims of violence are also against legalisation of prostitution, as some Bulgarian politicians have proposed. "It does not mean that we would like to initiate prosecution against those women but we are against turning prostitution into an institution by law," Desislava Gotzkova from the BFGR said.

The NGOs are also lobbying for tightening the regime on firearms, saying that firearms are usually the means of domestic violence and of forceful prostitution and sexual abuse.

The statistics say that every fourth woman in Bulgaria is victim to domestic violence. But this statistic is not official. It is gathered by sociological methods, but results are inexact because many women are ashamed or afraid to confess what they have been subjected to. Bulgarian doctors are not obliged to report to the police whenever they have suspicions of domestic violence as there is no Bulgarian legislation that provides for this. So, there is no way to have the objective number.

To have a clearer picture, the BFGR is now counting the bodies. They have asked coroners to help them estimate at least the death rate caused by domestic violence, as the signs on the bodies are clear and victims cannot lie that they fell on the stairs. And while they are doing that, the Act Against Violence is still waiting on some shelf in Parliament.