Romani Children at Risk in the Child Protection System in Bulgaria
13. Testimonies Facility for Social Services for Children and Families (FSSCF), “Mother and Baby” Unit, Pazardzhik 1. N. is a Romani woman aged 20, born in Velingrad. She was placed with her 6-monthold baby in the Facility for Social Services for Children and Families (FSSCF) in Pazardzhik because she and her baby were abused by her boyfriend and his family with which they lived (they are ethnic Bulgarians according to the woman). The baby is from her second pregnancy. She aborted her first child. She was raised in institutional care although she had biological parents. After she was first placed in an institution at the age of five or six she had no contact with her parents until 2007, when the institution’s staff decided to bring her to see her family. Then she realized that her mother had died. N. has ten brothers and sisters but she only knows two of her sisters. She attended kindergarten for several years. At that time she escaped from her family as her father physically abused her, due to his alcohol addiction. He also made her beg in the streets. After her escape she went to the police station in her birth town. After that she was placed in a temporary placement home for children in Sofia. At that time she did not know any Bulgarian. Then she was moved to a temporary placement home in Plovdiv and finally placed in a home for children deprived of parental care in the mountain village of Orehovo. Until the age of 18 she lived in another home for children deprived of parental care in the town of Shiroka laka. She complained that in the Plovdiv home the children stole a lot and she was tortured by the older children who stole clothes and money from her and were verbally aggressive to her. She did not complain of racially motivated treatment in the homes. However, she did not like her peers in the institutions where she was raised. After she turned 18 she was placed in a protected home in Smolian where she stayed for a few years with the intention to prepare herself for independent living. She was registered as unemployed and was involved in a vocational training course. She worked for a while in a shop and got a salary of 125 Euro. Then she met her boyfriend who was living with his family in Smolian. She moved into their house and got pregnant. Her boyfriend started abusing her after using alcohol. His mother and father did not help the woman. The social workers monitored his family and obliged the man to improve the material conditions in their house as they were inappropriate for raising a child and to find himself a job. The woman was expected to stay in the FSSCF for six months and the social workers trained her to take care of her baby and prepared her for reintegration in her boyfriend’s family. 2. A socially neglected Romani woman who has never experienced residential living conditions and has lived in a shaft in a village. She does not have an ID and does not know her own age or the age of her children. She has had four children, but two of them died very early. She has fed the babies with Coca Cola. The woman has no death certificates and does not provide information about the place where they have been buried. She cannot provide information 58