A/HRC/43/40/Add.1 Annex Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material, on her visit to Bulgaria I. Introduction A. Programme of the visit 1. At the invitation of the Government of Bulgaria, the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material, visited Bulgaria from 1 to 8 April 2019. The objectives of the visit were to assess the situation of the sale and sexual exploitation of children and to evaluate the national child protection system, with a view to making recommendations to prevent and eradicate all forms of sale and sexual exploitation of children. 2. Over the course of the mission, the Special Rapporteur visited Sofia, Burgas, Sliven, Podem and Pernik. She met representatives of the executive, legislature and judiciary at the central and local levels. She held meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the State Agency for Refugees, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the State Agency for Child Protection, the Social Assistance Agency, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Youth and Sport and the Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications. She also met the Ombudsman, members of parliament, judges in regional courts, health mediators, information and communications technology (ICT) experts, and representatives of the Commission for Protection against Discrimination, the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, the police force, the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation, the National Institute of Justice, District Prosecutors’ Offices, the National Statistical Institute, the cybercrime unit at the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, civil society organizations and childcare services. 3. The Special Rapporteur visited two centres for child victims of trafficking, sexual exploitation and domestic violence, in Burgas and Sredetz; a centre linked to the hospital for victims of sexual violence in Burgas; a family-type residential care institution for child victims of sexual violence; and a family-type placement centre for children and young people with disabilities in Burgas and a crisis centre in Sredetz. She also met health mediators and visited Nadezhda, a Roma neighbourhood in Sliven; the State Agency for Refugees registration and reception centre (Voenna Rampa refugee camp) in Sofia, for the temporary placement of refugees and migrants, including unaccompanied children; and a correctional school for girls in Podem. 4. The Special Rapporteur expresses her gratitude to the Government for facilitating her meetings with the authorities at the central and local levels, the members of civil society who met with her, and the children who were willing to share with her their experiences and their aspirations for their future. The Special Rapporteur also expresses her gratitude to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for its assistance before and during her mission. She further thanks the individuals and organizations that she met, for their readiness to share first-hand experiences and insights. B. Context 5. Located in south-eastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria is an uppermiddle-income country and has been a member State of the European Union since 2007. Its 2