site.btaUPDATED 60-Plus Receive Legal Aid in Cases of Domestic Violence since Start of 2025

Since the beginning of this year, under a memorandum signed with the Ministry of Interior and the bar councils in 2023, more than 60 people have received legal assistance in cases of domestic violence, National Office for Legal Assistance (NOLA) Chair Natalia Ilieva told BTA. Another 139 people received assistance in 2024.

The latest amendments to the Legal Aid Act decreased the limit for adjudication of applications from 14 to 3 days, i.e. the need for a quick response from NOLA has been taken into account, Ilieva pointed out.

She stated that the latest amendments to the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act prove the state's will to tackle domestic violence. At present, legal assistance is provided to victims of domestic violence in 16 regions of the country through regional counselling centres operated by bar associations.

The highest number of aid requests have been received in Sliven and Plovdiv. NOLA has seen an increase in applications for legal assistance, which means that victims are becoming bolder in sharing their problem and seeking protection, Ilieva said.

The expert reported: "If we look at the Ministry of Interior statistics, we will see that the court issued protection orders in 2024 were more than 5,000. This means that the rescue of more than 5,000 victims of domestic violence has begun. Of course, the process of this rescue is ongoing, and many institutions are responsible and involved. In addition, NOLA has developed the mobile app Pomogni mi [Help me], which is absolutely free and contains information on all government institutions involved in the problem. It contains details of NGOs working on domestic violence, and of regional counselling centres with the bar councils, to which victims can turn."