A/HRC/43/40/Add.1 population at the end of 2018 was 7,000,039 people, of which 1,004,845 were children aged 0–15 years. 1 Bulgaria borders Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. Along with citizens of Bulgarian origin, citizens identifying as Turkish, Roma, Armenian, Jewish, Vlach, Karakachani, Russian, Greek and others live in the country. The majority of the population (75.9 per cent) are of Eastern Orthodox confession (HRI/CORE/BGR/2014, para. 1–3). 6. Despite macroeconomic stability, Bulgaria has yet to attain European Union standards of socioeconomic development and social cohesion. Almost half of Bulgarian children (43.7 per cent,2 or 527,200 children) live at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Particularly vulnerable are children living in poor households, families with more than three children or with single parents, children of Roma or Turkish ethnicity, children not attending school, children with disabilities, children living in remote rural areas or in regions with limited employment, unaccompanied children, children of migrant or refugee families and children in residential care.3 7. Inequality among children of different ethnic groups remains: 45 per cent of Roma children do not attend preschool or kindergarten and 15 per cent do not attend school, due to poverty and inability to pay the hidden costs of education, parents’ low level of education, poor health, poor command of the official language, and prejudices and discriminatory attitudes toward ethnic minorities.4 8. The increase in the number of unaccompanied migrant and asylum-seeking children arriving on its territory in the period 2014–2016 has placed a significant strain on the country’s reception system, exacerbating existing gaps. In 2016, 19,418 migrants and refugees applied for international protection, approximately 30 per cent of whom were children, including unaccompanied children and children separated from their families.5 9. Bulgaria has achieved significant progress in the area of childcare reform, more specifically in ensuring the child’s right to live in a family environment. The number of children in large residential institutions decreased from 7,587 in 2010 to 633 in 2018, owing to the developed network of foster families and alternative family-type care. In line with an ambitious national strategy entitled “Vision for the deinstitutionalization of children in the Republic of Bulgaria” (2010), all institutions for children with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities and almost half of residential medical and social care homes for children up to the age of 3 years were closed. 10. Bulgaria was elected as a member of the Human Rights Council for the period 2019–2021. It has extended a standing invitation to all special procedure mandate holders. II. Scope of the sale and sexual exploitation of children 11. The scope and prevalence of the sale and sexual exploitation of children has been of concern to stakeholders confronted with the plight of victims. However, the real magnitude of the problem is unknown, owing to the unavailability of centralized and disaggregated data on the different forms of sexual abuse and exploitation of children and on the number of cases identified, investigated and prosecuted. According to anecdotal evidence, the scale of child prostitution and child sexual exploitation, including sexual abuse within the inner circle of trust, is vast in Bulgaria. They are believed to be most prevalent among marginalized children struck by poverty, social exclusion and segregation, children on the move, children living in residential care and children left behind by their parents, and occur within a deeply embedded culture of silence, tolerance and stigma towards the most marginalized groups of the society. 1 2 3 4 5 National Statistical Institute, Population and Demographic Processes 2018 (Sofia, 2019), pp. 15–16. Available at www.nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/publications/DMGR2018.pdf. See www.nsi.bg/en/content/8288/social-inclusion-and-living-conditions. UNICEF, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Bulgaria 2017 (Sofia, 2018). Ibid. UNICEF, Situation Analysis of Children and Women in Bulgaria, p. 12. 3