Since the beginning of our full membership in Schengen on January 1, the Ministry of Interior has prevented 30 attempts to remove children from the country without parental consent. However, only three of them are the result of compensatory checks at the internal borders with Romania and Greece and at the airports in the country.
After the abolition of controls at land borders, the Declaration of Parental Consent when removing a minor has become recommended, not mandatory. However, from the “Border Police” assured that they will conduct random checks at airports and internal Schengen borders when there is a traveling child.
It is not clear how many cases there are in which, without the knowledge of both parents, children leave the country and even those of the Schengen area. Family law lawyers encounter such cases every day. Nova TV tells about such a search, which reveals a problem in the system.
We will call him Ivan - the father of a 3-year-old boy who was kidnapped by his mother on February 1. “She had left with a large suitcase and the child. On February 2, I declared them an international wanted person. Several days passed without official information. Then I found out that my wife immediately caught a flight to Munich, Germany”, says the father.
A day after he learned from the police that his son had been kidnapped, the man received a call from London. “She called me from a payphone. She told me she had run out of money and asked me to send her money so she could return to Bulgaria. I told her I wanted her to speak to a police officer who would escort her to the gate. Then I caught a flight to “Heathrow” and went looking for them in the terminals”, the man said.
So, although both the mother and the child are wanted in the Schengen system, they leave the area and end up in the British capital. “I know that she was stopped in Germany and asked questions. But then they let her go, even though there was already an Interpol bulletin issued”, Ivan also points out.
”She is wanted by the Ministry of Interior – “Border Police”, by the Schengen police, by Interpol and by Europol. This whole system did not work in their case”, claims Yordanka Bekirska, a family law lawyer.
Despite this case, compensatory checks at airports and at the country's internal borders have a special focus on minors. “Since minors are a specific category, they are checked in order to determine whether they are at risk. They are checked in the information arrays of the Ministry of Internal Affairs”, explained Chief Inspector Svetoslav Sharlagandzhiev from the ”Border Police”.
As of January 1, illegal removals of three children to the Schengen area have been stopped - two at the Romanian border and one at Sofia Airport. “How many are not stopped, we can't even track”, commented lawyer Bekirska.
”In the event of a specific clear risk of illegal removal, the District Court may impose a ban on the child leaving the country”, emphasized Chief Inspector Sharlagandzhiev.
According to Bekirska, however, such a case takes months. “We need to know that it is quick and effective when a person, from the moment he is declared wanted in Bulgaria, is declared wanted in the Schengen area as well”, said the lawyer.
And while what happened to Ivan and his 3-year-old child ends with a happy ending after his wife voluntarily returns to our country, it is not clear whether the state's measures are sufficient to protect the children. “Not knowing what is happening to your child - whether he is well, whether he is warm, whether he is alive… "No parent should have to experience this," Ivan is categorical.