A/HRC/44/52/Add.1 women had experienced domestic violence, but 48 per cent of those women had not informed anyone.18 In another study, it was estimated that in 2015 70–80 per cent of domestic violence cases went unreported, while for Roma women, the rate of non-reporting was as high as 90 per cent owing to fear of retaliation and lack of family and institutional support.19 These data reveal that domestic violence is still considered a private matter, tolerated and normalized, and women are still facing social and legal barriers to reporting domestic violence. Femicide or gender-related killings of women 50. Some official administrative data on gender-related killing of women and girls are available. In the past three years, femicides of women committed by spouses, partners and close relatives have increased. In 2016, 22 women were killed, in 2017 the number was 27 and in 2018, 33. 20 The data from 2018 shows that the killings were perpetrated by the persons closest to the women and it further reveals that 18 murders were motivated by jealousy. Seventeen perpetrators had previous convictions for other crimes and six had been convicted for femicides. The Special Rapporteur raises concerns about the lack of femicide prevention mechanisms, including a lack of a proper risk assessment tool, which could prevent the recurrence of these violations. Child, early and forced marriages and school dropouts 51. Article 6 of the Family Code establishes the minimum legal age for marriage as 18; however, a district judge may exceptionally authorize marriage for those aged 16 or more. Although in Bulgaria the practice of child marriages has decreased in the past years, it persists among some Roma communities. Child marriage is often accompanied by early and frequent pregnancies and childbirth and Bulgaria remains the European Union country with the second highest birth rate among teenagers. 21 The Special Rapporteur was informed of “marriages” of girls as young as 13 or 14 years old, mainly from the Roma community. These early marriages are very rarely prosecuted. According to the National Statistical Institute, the number of child marriages in Bulgaria increased by more than 450 per cent between 2010 and 2017. The population most affected by this were girls, who accounted for 95 per cent of the minors who married in 2017 (649 in total). Child marriages and early pregnancies are considered a harmful practice according to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child.22 The two Committees stated that: “A child marriage is considered to be a form of forced marriage, given that one and/or both parties have not expressed full, free and informed consent” (para. 20) and that: “Child marriage also contributes to higher rates of school dropout, especially among girls, forced exclusion from school and an increased risk of domestic violence, in addition to limiting the enjoyment of the right to freedom of movement” (para. 22). 52. The Special Rapporteur was also informed of a very high rate of school dropout among Roma girls. The Special Rapporteur was alarmed to hear that the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues and the National Statistical Institute do not collect data on school dropouts disaggregated by ethnicity, which would allow the specific needs of Roma communities to be extrapolated.23 The three main reasons for dropping out of school in Roma communities are early pregnancies, early marriages and fear that a girl would be abducted to be married. The Special Rapporteur notes that as soon as a girl steps 18 19 20 21 22 23 Ibid., “Gender equality index 2017: Bulgaria”. United States Department of State, “2016 Country reports on human rights practices – Bulgaria”. Statistics provided by the Ministry of Interior. Eurostat, “Teenage and older mothers in the EU” (August 2017), available at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20170808-1. See joint general recommendation No. 31 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women/general comment No. 18 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2014) on harmful practices. Civil society reported a 65 per cent dropout rate for Roma girls between the sixth and eighth grades. The Government stated that it could not corroborate that. 13