The Interior Ministry will work on the counting and registering of all homeless children, in accordance with a programme for child protection. A national hotline will be created, on which citizens can report homeless children. Measures for child protection cannot be effective as the exact number of homeless children is unknown, director of Social Protection and Social Integration Agency Maria Tomova said.
The national programme will have seven priorities. These include decreasing the number of children raised in specialised institutions, creating better living conditions for them, making measures against child abuse more effective, implementing sanctions against child exploitation and guaranteeing equal access to education. An additional aim will be to decrease the number of child victims of traffic accidents. Statistics shows that 326 children died in car accidents during the past four years. The programme will also aid the integration of Roma children in schools and kindergartens, mediapool.bg reported.