Bulgarian Minister calls for public involvement in tackling online crimes against children

Sofia, May 23 (IANS) The Bulgarian Justice Minister, Georgi Georgiev, called for a society-wide drive to tackle online crimes against children after a recent report revealed 70,000 alerts for online crimes against children in 2024.

At a roundtable discussion on protecting children from online violence on Thursday, Georgiev emphasised on Thursday that such crimes represent a huge challenge, and society had to be involved to tackle it.

Citing the report that the Bulgarian Safer Internet Center (SIC) has reviewed and referred to the relevant authorities, Georgiev said: "This work shows that the challenge is much bigger than it seems to us."

He said the public should have been made aware of this issue because there is no measure in the penal code or any new law to fix the problem, and prevention is necessary, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Let's talk more about the role of the family, the school, the environment, because the justice system only specifically intervenes when the antisocial act is a fact," he underlined.

"We need to think about the reasons."

He also urged a strong and decisive response from law enforcement since the public expects a reaction when alerts are made.

According to Vladimir Dimitrov, head of the Cybercrime Directorate at Bulgaria's General Directorate for Combating Organised Crime, who also attended the roundtable organised by the SIC, Bulgaria's specialised unit for combating crimes against children in cyberspace has doubled its staff within the last two years.

The staff at this unit uses specialised software to identify Bulgarian IP addresses that are copying and distributing child sexual exploitation materials in cyberspace.

Almost every week, his colleagues travel around Bulgaria to arrest people who download and distribute these materials, Dimitrov said, although it is impossible to catch everyone involved in such activities.

He added that the regulatory framework regarding anti-social behaviour and violations of public order by adolescents and work with them is archaic and irretrievably outdated.

"That is why I have formed a working group, which includes representatives of the court, the prosecution service, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, academia and the non-governmental sector. Its task is to analyse statistical data, good practices from EU member states, study the practice of courts and commissions for combating anti-social behaviour by minors and to propose a completely new working model for juvenile justice, which concerns both punishments and prevention and re-educational impact," said Georgiev.

--IANS

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