The Project “Mapping the Murders of Women in Bulgaria” by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) is our response to the long-standing neglect by institutions of violence against women. Its most extreme form is murder, known as femicide – i.e. the killing of a woman because she is a woman. Unlike the neutral term murder, femicide highlights the link between gender-based discrimination and fatal violence.
In Bulgaria, there are no official statistics or analyses of murders and other forms of violence against women through the lens of gender. This conceals the scale of the problem and prevents finding solutions. As authors of the project, we believe that in order to fight violence, we must first make it visible.
As part of this long-term commitment, we created something the authorities have failed to do for years – real, comprehensive statistics and analysis of court cases across the country related to the killing of women, available through the interactive map at spasena.org.
In order to collect court practice for the period 2018–2023, BHC submitted more than 30 freedom of information requests under the Access to Public Information Act to the 28 regional courts in the country, which serve as the first instance in cases of murder falling under the provisions of the Criminal Code relevant to our research.
The next phase of the study involved processing the court practice and extracting the information needed for analysis based on pre-established indicators. Some of them are identical to those used in the previous project for the sake of traceability – such as the relationship between perpetrator and victim, method/means of committing the crime, history of prior violence, and reports to the police. New indicators were also added to determine whether Bulgarian courts identify and take into account factors that global practice recognizes as predictors of increased femicide risk – for example, history of violence, threats, alcohol use.
The database contains 109 convictions that fall within the scope of the definition of femicide. This includes 84 murders of women, 19 attempted murders, and 6 cases of negligent death as a result of intentional bodily harm. To collect the necessary information about the sentences, we officially requested data from regional courts across the country. Some courts did not provide any response, while others replied after months of delay. As a result, a small portion of the judgments had to be obtained through the portal of the Supreme Judicial Council. Consequently, 96 convictions were included in the detailed indicator analysis.
From the overall database (109), we extracted certain demographic characteristics and established that in at least 74 cases the murder was committed in the victim’s home.
Murders and attempted murders by former and current intimate partners, unmarried partners, or spouses account for 50 cases, representing 52% of the 96 convictions for murder or attempted murder of women included in the extended study, which forms the basis for the remaining indicators presented further.
Convictions for murder or attempted murder where the perpetrator and victim were relatives – such as mother (victim) and son, grandmother (victim) and grandson, daughter (victim) and mother, daughter (victim) and father, mother and father (victims) and son, grandparents (victims) and grandson, sister (victim) and brother, brother and his partner (victims) and brother, first cousins, and other relatives – amount to 28.
Murders and attempted murders committed by acquaintances number 14, representing 14.5%.
Murders and attempted murders where the perpetrator and victim did not know each other are only 2, representing 2% of all convictions.
The full analysis of the data for the period 2018–2023 is available in Bulgarian here.
Here is how the database of court practice was created in 2018. The main activities of the project involved collecting and processing court cases on the murders of women, organizing them into a database, and publishing them on the platform ubita.org.
The database contains convictions for intentional murder, attempted murder, and negligent death resulting from intentional bodily harm, issued by regional courts as first instance during the period 2012–2017, where the victims were women aged 14 or older and the perpetrators were men.
To collect court practice, between 2015 and 2018 BHC submitted more than 110 freedom of information requests under the Access to Public Information Act to the 28 regional courts in the country, which serve as the first instance for murder cases falling under the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code.
Based on the case lists provided and by using the central web-based interface for judicial acts www.legalacts.justice.bg as well as court websites, BHC researchers reviewed all murder convictions in order to extract those where the victims were women.
The next phase of the study involved processing the court practice and extracting the information needed for analysis based on pre-established indicators – such as relationship between perpetrator and victim, method/means of committing the crime, history of prior violence, reports to the police, and others. Based on this analysis, the database allows searches using one or more of the following criteria:
Court: entries in the database can be filtered by the court that issued the conviction
Year of conviction: the database includes judgments issued between 2012 and 2017 inclusive
Crime: the database covers convictions for intentional murder (Articles 115, 116, and 118 of the Criminal Code), attempted murder, and negligent death resulting from intentional bodily harm (Article 124 of the Criminal Code)
Perpetrator/victim relationship: entries can be filtered based on the relationship between the perpetrator and the murder victim – former partners, current partners, brother/sister, son/mother, son/foster parent, grandson/grandmother, other family relationship, acquaintances, strangers
Method/means of committing the crime: entries can be filtered by the method/means of committing the crime
The database contains 141 court acts. The search results are presented in a list containing the following information: court, case number, year of the crime, type of crime, perpetrator–victim relationship, age of the victim, age of the perpetrator, method/means of committing the crime, location of the crime, and a link to the conviction published on www.legalacts.justice.bg or the respective court’s website.
The analysis of court practice shows that during the period under review, regional courts issued at least 102 convictions for intentional murders of women by men. In 95% of the cases, the perpetrators knew their victims; in 70% they were in close relationships – relatives, former or current partners; and in 44% of the cases the perpetrators were former or current partners. There is a clear correlation between the perpetrators’ relationship to their victims and the crimes committed. Bulgarian courts continue to accept jealousy as a “mitigating circumstance,” which is unacceptable.
The review of court practice shows that every third murdered woman had been subjected to systematic violence, and every tenth had sought police protection against violence from the perpetrator. 62% of the victims were killed in their homes.