On March 8, Parliament started a process that will spell the end of the controversial Vanko 1 Amendment to the Penal Code dealing with crimes related to prostitution.

Four out of the six draft bills amending the Penal Code adopted by MPs on first reading referred to crimes related to prostitution.

All four provided for stricter penalties for, among other offences, inducement to prostitution.

MPs from the ruling majority, Maya Manolova of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), Yani Yanev of the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms’ Chetin Kazak, introduced the first draft bill. The bill envisages between 10 and 20 years’ imprisonment and a fine ranging from 100 000 leva to 300 000 leva for “any person who induces or forces another person to use narcotic drugs or equivalents for the purpose of prostitution, copulation, indecent assault or sexual intercourse or acts aimed at sexual gratification with a person of the same sex”.

“Any person who induces another person to become a prostitute or procures persons for indecent assault or copulation and any person who systematically provides premises to various persons for sexual intercourse or indecent assault” will face two to eight years in jail and a fine ranging from 5000 to 15 000 leva. Persons committing these acts out of “self-interested motives” will face three to 10 years in jail and a fine from 10 000 to 25 000 leva.

Independent right-wing MPs Eleonora Nikolova, Dimitar Abadjiev and Maria Cappone introduced the second draft bill adopted. Their bill was backed by 135 MPs. The bill says: “When inducement to prostitution, copulation, indecent assault or sexual intercourse or acts aimed at sexual gratification with a person of the same sex is coupled with drug use, the fine will be between 20 000 and 100 000 leva.”

Any person who induces another person to prostitution or procures other persons for indecent assault or copulation will face up to five years in jail and a fine ranging from 3000 to 10 000 leva. The systematic provision of premises to various persons for sexual intercourse or indecent assault should be punishable by the same fine, the bill says. “If these acts are performed out of self-interested motives, they will be punishable by two to six years’ imprisonment and a fine ranging between 10 000 and 20 000 leva.”

The third bill was presented by Eliana Masseva, Ekaterina Mihailova and Atanas Atanassov, from the right-wing opposition Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria. The bill got the support of all 159 MPs present. It provided for the restoration of Penal Code provisions deleted in 2002. The fourth draft bill came from two independent MPs Stela Bankova and Mincho Hristov, formerly members of the ultra-nationalist party Ataka. The Bankova-Hristov bill drew 83 votes in favour, 23 against with 32 abstentions. The fifth adopted bill amending the Penal Code was introduced by Svetoslav Spasov and Maria Angelieva from the NMSII. With 128 MPs having voted in favour, the bill envisaged harsher punishments for indecent assault on underaged persons, as well as for generating and distributing pornographic material featuring underaged persons on the internet.

There was criticism among initial reactions to the MPs’ joint initiative in imposing harsher penalties for crimes linked to prostitution.

On March 9, Bulgarian-language daily Troud published an interview with BSP MP Tatyana Doncheva. Doncheva was among the MPs who in 2006 supported the previous amendment of the Penal Code, the Vanko 1 Amendment. Doncheva said that the newly proposed changes seemed archaic to her. She said that, going by the text of the draft bill introduced by her fellow BSP member Manolova, two-thirds of Bulgarians should have been sent to prison because the text incriminates not only inducement to prostitution but also any stimulation of sexual behaviour.

The four bills were tabled amid public debate on prostitution and human trafficking problems in Bulgaria.

On March 8, a national conference on counteracting trafficking in persons was held in Sofia. A total of 22 cases out of the 80 investigated in 2006 were completed by the National Investigative Service (NIS), NIS deputy director Roumen Georgiev told the conference. Cases of human trafficking outnumbered drug cases.

Georgiev said that a law specifically on prostitution would only “officially recognise incomes from such a criminal business”.

But just such a bill appears to be on the Interior Ministry’s agenda. On February 13, Deputy Interior Minister Kamen Penkov told Bulgarian news agency BTA that a working group would be ready with a Prostitution Bill within a few months.

Currently, the status in law of prostitution is unclear. Penkov said that legislative provisions dated back from before 1944, and after communism came to Bulgaria at that time, the regime held that there was no prostitution in Bulgaria.

“There is political will on the part of the state to introduce a clear and precise legislative basis,” he said. Penkov said that he expected considerable resistance from pimps, because legalisation of prostitution would most probably reduce their profits.

The case of Ivan Glavchev, known as rap performer Vanko 1, has become a synonym for badly implemented legislation in Bulgaria. The case attracted such strong public attention that it even entered the European Commission’s 2006 monitoring reports on Bulgaria’s readiness to join the EU. In 2003, Plovdiv District Court sentenced Glavchev to the maximum 10 years imprisonment after finding him guilty of incitement to prostitution. Vanko 1 was found to have acted together with his cousin Dimitar Rachelov on the territories of Bulgaria, France, Italy, Spain and Brussels between 1999 and 2003. In 2006, to public astonishment, MPs “inadvertently” (as some later claimed) approved changes to the Penal Code that softened the punishment for such crimes. Glavchev immediately appealed against his sentence and on January 25 2007, Plovdiv Appellate Court reduced his sentence to four and a half years. Given the time he has already served, Glavchev will remain in prison only for a further year and a month.