A/HRC/16/9 50. The United States of America stated that the new Government’s commitment to rooting out corruption was laudable, and encouraged it to institutionalize those reforms. It remained concerned about harsh conditions in prisons and detention facilities and in Staterun institutions for children, such as orphanages, reform boarding schools and facilities for children with mental disabilities. It was concerned about reports by some minority religious groups that they had been subjected to discrimination from local government officials, even after having obtained national registration through the courts, and about reports that Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslim communities had experienced difficulties in obtaining construction permits for new houses of worship. It made recommendations. 51. Bosnia and Herzegovina noted Bulgaria’s significant progress in building its human rights legislative framework and praised the extension of a standing invitation to the special procedures. It welcomed the establishment of the National Commission to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings. It inquired about Bulgaria’s accession to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and legislation on the right to asylum and protection against discrimination. It made recommendations. 52. Serbia asked about the implementation of legislation on the right to education. It drew attention to legislation that appeared to reinforce stereotypical attitudes regarding the roles of men and women. Serbia asked for information about measures to reduce horizontal gender segregation in the economy; efforts to assess and monitor the employment situation of ethnic minority groups; measures planned to implement the newly adopted Declaration on the situation of the Roma population; and efforts to prevent and combat trafficking. It made a recommendation. 53. Azerbaijan commended Bulgaria for its institutional reforms, including the establishment of the State Agency for Child Protection in 2000 and many others. It stated that in 2009, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had noted with satisfaction various measures taken and programmes implemented for the integration of persons belonging to minority groups. Azerbaijan made recommendations. 54. In respect of juvenile justice, the delegation of Bulgaria responded that relevant authorities were working on a new concept aimed at reform of the system. 55. Concerning the implementation of the National Strategy for Children, nine crisis centres had been established to look after children for up to six months if they were at risk of violence or any other crime, and 150 people had attended those centres in 2009. Bulgaria stated that there was a unified national telephone number for child molestation, and that a very large number of children had contacted authorities by calling that number. 56. With respect to prison conditions, Bulgaria acknowledged that conditions were not good and needed to be improved, and a new plan of action had been adopted by the Government to reform prisons. To date, conditions in five prisons had been improved, and one new prison was being built in Sofia. 57. Regarding religious affairs, the delegation responded that the Government did not believe that any country outside Bulgaria’s borders had the right by implication to represent or to speak on behalf of any religious or ethnic communities in the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria. Existing disputes within some religious communities were addressed through the legal process, and the Government would be wrong if it were to interfere in that process, as some might have suggested. With respect to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bulgaria indicated that the Government had been thanked in writing by the European Association of the Christian Witnesses of Jehovah for having addressed their specific concerns. 10