Bulgaria now has an association specifically devoted to battling domestic violence.

The National Association Against Violence (NAAV) was launched during a forum held on October 28. The association was established by a number of NGOs at the initiative of the Values Foundation in order to protect the most vulnerable members of society - women and children.

Antonina Stoyanova, wife of President Petar Stoyanov and executive director of the Values Foundation, is the initiator of the association. She has been supported by legal advisors, psychiatrists, doctors, journalists and NGOs. All of these groups have been united around the idea of preventing violence as the first step in fighting it.

Stoyanova starting developing the idea of launching the association two months ago. The notion for it occurred as a result of the growing escalation of violence against children, women and elderly people. One of the reasons for the launch of the NAAV came as the result of the insufficient and ineffective legal base for the punishment of offenders. According to Stoyanova, domestic violence and child pornography on the Internet are two absolute taboos in Bulgarian society.

She said a wide dialogue between society and the institutions was one of the most effective means of preventing violence in all its forms. Stoyanova's idea was supported by the International People's Movement for Protection of Children. Omaira Selie, chairperson of the movement, personally attended the founding of NAAV and expressed her wish for mutual cooperation between all participants in the forum. Stoyanova is a member of the honorary committee of the international movement which was established 12 years ago.

"The goal of the association is to exert pressure on law-making concerning violence, and it will definitely create a new public attitude towards its prevention," Stoyanova said at the forum. "That is what we are aiming at."

She stressed the need of a functioning project for the exchange of information, which can coordinate the work of the institutions and the NGOs.

"The Penal Code for punishing violators is not efficient at all and there are 10 unrevealed cases of violence behind each one that has been discovered," Selie said.

Petya Shopova, a lawyer and member of the association, revealed statistics provided by the Interior Ministry and explained that laws do not tend to deal with pornographic sites or domestic violence and the sole purpose of the association would be to focus on both. She said that 2.5 million children in the world are prostitutes, four million people are trafficked illegally, and over 150,000 children appear on porno websites.

Sexual violence against children boomed after the Internet became a basic source for the distribution of child pornography, she said. Within the last 10 years, the relative share of violence towards women and children has increased dramatically.

Shopova quoted a worrying percentage of rapes, domestic violence, robberies and murders involving the most vulnerable groups of society. Robberies and thefts account for 62.8 per cent of all crimes against children, women and the elderly. Second place, according to the statistics, is rape (16.3 per cent). Murders, corporal injuries and blackmails are 8.3, 4.3 and 3.9 per cent respectively.

"Children are affected by domestic violence even when not they, but their mothers, are being beaten up," Genoveva Tisheva, Gender Research executive director, said at the forum. According to her, violence against women affects their human dignity, and basic human rights and sets them on an unequal position in the family. "Violence against women intensifies the discrimination between both sexes in society," she said.

Vessela Draganova, an MP from the National Movement Simeon II and a chairperson of the Women's Party, sent a letter of approval for the establishment of the association in Bulgaria. "I declare today, in front of all representatives at the forum, that you have a devoted supporter, lobbying against violence in all its ways in Bulgarian Parliament," the letter read.

The executive director of UNICEF-Bulgaria, Zhechka Karaslavova, expressed her worry that children are the most susceptible to being attacked. She said it is sad that children's rights are always the last on the agenda of society. Karaslavova added that in 2001, which has been announced by the United Nations as the year of children, everybody should give young people a chance to grow up in a world without violence.

The set goals for NAAV include promoting an awareness for the existence of violence and overcoming the nation's bashfulness about the notion of violence in society. The association will soon publish a promotional booklet which will offer solutions to concrete problems and situations. The booklet will be distributed among the NAAV's associates.

Future work and ideas will be constantly expanding, and a monitoring of the speed and acquisition of the project will be made by all representatives of the association. The matter will not be exhausted with a day-long forum but will continue to expand," said Zheni Nikolova, an associate of the project.