Children in Bulgaria are often deprived of their basic rights by police, the very people who are supposed to protect them. After conducting a fact-finding mission to Bulgaria in the spring of 1996, Human Rights Watch concludes that street children are often subjected to physical abuse and other mistreatment by police, both on the street and in police lockups, and by skinhead gangs, who brutally attack the children because of their Roma (Gypsy) ethnic identity. Once detained by police, children fall victim to gross procedural inadequacies in the juvenile justice system in Bulgaria.