District Court Rules to Leave Mother in Mental Health Facility Without Her Child for 30 Days

The District Court in Plovdiv finally decided to leave 43-year-old Galya Taneva in the Center for Mental Health. Her stay there will last 30 days.

Taneva is the mother of the 3-year-old child Buda, as she named him and gave birth at home. Before the social services took it away from the woman, she did not have a birth certificate or social security number issued.

The case is being heard behind closed doors, and today Taneva appeared before the magistrates for the second time to appeal the decision of the first instance court. District Court magistrates also ruled earlier that Buddha’s mother should remain in the Mental Health Centre.

During the case in the District Court, lawyer Kostadinov asked the magistrates for the 43-year-old woman to continue her treatment at home, and this request was repeated, but was again disregarded.

While the two-hour session was going on, around 20 people from all over Bulgaria had gathered in front of the courthouse to support mother Taneva. The protesters for Galya loudly sang “Koi ushi bairak” and “Yovano, Jovanke”, reported TrafficNews.bg.

“There is a God and He sees,” they commented. According to Tancheva’s friends, this is child abduction, regardless of whether it was done legally.

Galya Taneva’s diagnosis is a mild form of schizophrenia, but according to her defender, after completing the treatment, she will be a completely new person.

After the one-month stay in the medical facility, Galya Taneva will be released and will be able to go home, but without her 3-year-old son, who was taken out by the social workers and has a measure of temporary protection issued. The boy’s name is now Atanas Tanev. His name was officially given after a decision of the Plovdiv District Court. The child has been placed in a foster family.

The reason why Galya Taneva did not register her son was her firm belief that “existence on paper” would make him forever a “slave of a diabolical system”.

The 3-year-old boy is the woman’s second child. Her first-born baby died at the end of April 2016 at birth in her house in Ivan Vazovo. Then it became clear that the newborn had suffocated. The mother was hospitalized for a time, but after being released, she stopped taking her medication and became worse again.

The decision of the District Court is final and not subject to appeal.