What should be done about the legal status of prostitution in Bulgaria emerged as the topic of a conference held in Sofia on October 5. The conference, billed as a discussion on the legal and institutional mechanisms for combating human trafficking, provided a wonderful opportunity for the authorities to throw some light on what their policy on prostitution in Bulgaria is. As President Georgi Purvanov said in his opening speech: “The fact that I see Interior Minister Roumen Petkov, Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva, Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev and US ambassador to Bulgaria John Beyrle among the guests, shows that this issue is of vital importance for the public.”
The first speaker, Nadezhda Mihailova, former foreign minister and current chairperson of the Institute for Democracy and Stability in South-East Europe, which organised the conference, tried to set the focus on human trafficking issues, citing her own organisation’s data that each year more than 10 000 women in Bulgaria are “sent” abroad.
However, all the speakers that gave presentations after her could not escape the hot topic of whether there should be a law on prostitution in Bulgaria.
In a time when prostitution has become an integral part of society, Bulgaria lacks a legal definition about what is prostitution, a situation inherited from the times when the country was under communist rule. Communist ideology denied the existence of prostitution in Bulgaria. The only document in the country’s legislation that refers to prostitution is the Penal Code, which sets out the punishments to be imposed on people (pimps) who force other people into being prostitutes. Prostitutes themselves are not mentioned. This means that in Bulgaria being a prostitute is not illegal. If the old presumption that what is not illegal is legal is assumed, this effectively makes prostitution in Bulgaria legal.
This was among Petkov’s main points at the conference. “I want prostitution to be punished by law because all that we can do now is to detain prostitutes, who are on the streets, for 24 hours, question them and release them.” According to him, there should be serious changes in the Penal Code. “My personal opinion is that there should not be a law that defines prostitution as a legal profession,” Petkov told The Sofia Echo. “I have no doubt that selling flesh is a crime,” Petkov said.
The idea of having a law about prostitution appeared early in February this year, as a result of an initiative by the National Tourism Board (NBT), a union of some of the biggest hotel owners in the country. Their idea was that prostitutes should practise their profession only in certain places, not outside on the street. NBT’s concern was that prostitutes tended to scare tourists, inside or outside the hotels, by offering them services. The idea was picked up by the Bulgarian-language media and, after a series of articles from experts in various fields, it started to take a certain shape. According to this idea, a law on prostitution should prohibit prostitutes from working on the streets.
Prostitutes should be allowed to practise their profession in defined places (buildings) where they will be able to have regular medical exams and, last but not least, they will also pay taxes to the state. At present prostitutes do not pay any taxes on their income. This law, according to some experts, would protect both prostitutes and clients from one another in case of conflict. This idea was made public by NBT in April but received no official reaction from the authorities until October 5.
Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev’s firm opinion on the issue was that legalising public houses (as Velchev referred to the venues where prostitutes would be allowed to practise) would allow people of questionable reputation to legalise their activities as well. “And for this the state will get some tax revenues from the prostitutes. Well I think the budget can do well without these taxes,” Velchev said. Velchev said that this issue was in direct connection with the fight against trafficking women. “For me prostitution equals exploitation and I think we could never be sure what is happening behind the doors of these public houses and no one can guarantee me that the women there are not being exploited. For me, if we make prostitution legal by adopting a law this will mean that that there will be a legitimate reason for someone to legally exploit someone else.”
He said that if such a law on prostitution became a reality it would hinder the fight against human trafficking. The NBT was mentioned only by Justice Minister Tacheva who said that the authorities had enough experts not to leave this important issue to “organisations such as NBT”. Tacheva said that Bulgaria could use the experience of Sweden and Norway, whose legislations provide for sanctions for prostitutes’ clients as well.
A drastic position on the subject was expressed by Zornitsa Alexandrova from the NGO Society and Values Association. “We believe that if they pass a law which is in favour of prostitution, allowing it, this will be a legalisation of organised crime,” Alexandrova told The Sofia Echo. “The experience of countries that have done that shows that this leads to an increase in the sex industry as a whole and child prostitution as well. This will simply legalise the pimps not the women who are working for them.” US ambassador John Beyrle was of the same opinion. “Making prostitution completely legal will turn the pimps into businessmen and prostitutes’ clients into customers.”
In general the authorities’ position on whether there should be a law on prostitution can be summarised in the words of Antoaneta Vassileva, Executive Secretary of the Bulgarian national anti-trafficking commission with in the Council of Ministers. Vassileva used to work for the NGO Facetoface, which works against trafficking of women.
“There is no doubt that there should be a legal framework with regards to prostitution,” Vassileva told The Sofia Echo. “With the current situation, where the pimp is the only one that can be prosecuted, we have achieved no results. If you ask any of the women on the street they will tell you that they work alone but we have every reason to believe otherwise.”
As for the idea that prostitutes will be made to pay taxes, Vassileva has an example. “Some while ago MPs adopted legislation which allowed people to register with tax authorities as people who provided escort services or ‘companions’ as people call them. This law was made with exactly the same purpose, so that women could register and pay taxes and be completely legal. As far as I know there are no more than two women who have registered as such, this is a complete failure of the idea. I do not think that there is something that can make prostitutes pay taxes to the state and split the money they earn. It will not happen that way.”
“Personally I think that Bulgarian society is not mature enough to see prostitution as something completely legal and regulated yet.” She said it would be naпve to think that each prostitute would have a cash register with her and will issue receipts to clients.
