Bulgaria toughens domestic violence laws after nationwide outcry

Bulgaria’s parliament on Monday hardened the penal code, increasing punishments for domestic violence after the harrowing case of a teenage girl tortured by her ex-boyfriend that sparked nationwide protests.

Lawmakers also amended a recently adopted law on protection against domestic violence, allowing people in “intimate relationships” to seek protection along with married couples.

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Bulgaria has refused to ratify the Istanbul Convention — a key international text aimed at protecting women from violence.

Thousands of people took to the streets last week to protest violence against women after an 18-year-old was attacked by her ex-boyfriend.

The man is accused of slashing her with a box cutter knife 21 times, breaking her nose and shaving off her hair. He was arrested but initially released as the injuries were deemed “minor” and not life-threatening.

After fresh details of the case were made public by the media, rare protests demanding justice engulfed the Balkan nation, triggering the arrest of the 26-year-old suspect who is accused of threatening to kill her.

On Monday, MPs removed from the penal code the possibility of probation for perpetrators of “minor bodily injury” — an offense punishable by up to two years in jail.

They also increased the maximum punishment for inflicting “medium bodily injury” from six to eight years in prison.

In a separate amendment to the law on protection against domestic violence, lawmakers included violence in an “intimate relationship,” widening the scope of protection.

Both the Socialists and the ultra-nationalist Vazrazhdane party accused lawmakers of trying to legalize same-sex relationships through the amendment, forcing an addition that it covered only relationships “between two persons, a male and a female.”

At least 14 women were killed by men they knew so far this year, according to unofficial data collected by Bulgarian NGOs.

Police meanwhile probed 596 cases of domestic violence in the first six months of 2023, up from 426 over the same period of 2022, national police data showed.

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