ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to find answers to some alarming and challenging questions, while drawing a critical parallel with relevant Bulgarian legislation and practice in reaction to cases of child abuse. The understanding and the articulation of the child abuse phenomenon is something new in Bulgaria. The basic feature of Bulgarian society at present is that it is a transitional society. It is undergoing a fundamental change of its socio-political and economic structure. Bulgarian society since 1989 has been trying to adopt the democratic values which incorporate human rights. In the context of the refusal to recognize the problem of child abuse, a series of myths were reproduced in the area of family relations. The phenomenon is conceptualized mainly in the field of criminal and family law. Regardless of the absence of an explicit concept of child abuse, the thinking of the legislator may be traced by the forms of violence against which protection is provided for the child.
