The government will submit a package of legislation to Parliament next week aimed at strengthening children’s rights and safety, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said in Budapest on Saturday. He was speaking at a press conference presenting a report on the country’s child-protection system.
Rules to be tightened
Magyar said the rules governing content accessible to minors would be tightened, including material that depicts sexual violence or sexuality explicitly, or promotes exploitation and manipulation.
Child-protection requirements covering outdoor advertising, political advertisements and media content will also be strengthened, he added. The Prime Minister said the law would also set out stricter requirements for how the state must deal with children stranded in hospital, ensuring that no child is left there for months simply because the system has failed to find suitable care.
The state would “never again turn its head away”, Magyar said. It would no longer conceal reports or abandon children and professionals working in the field. “The era of denial is over,” he said. “From now on, there will be action, the provision of the necessary resources and strict accountability.”
Government launches emergency programme
The government will also launch an immediate child-protection crisis programme worth around 10 billion forints. “We cannot afford to wait for next year’s budget; immediate action is needed,” Magyar said at the press conference, where he outlined the report and the Government’s planned measures.
According to the Prime Minister, around 6 billion forints will be spent on direct professional programmes, while a further 3.4 billion will fund developments, preferably before the end of this year. The professional programmes will create 184 new places, or places with new functions. They will also strengthen the protection and care provided at 15 specialist children’s homes, while immediate crisis accommodation will be established for 80 children, he said.
Magyar added that targeted care would be introduced for children with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disabilities and severe psychological or behavioural problems. A residential rehabilitation programme for children with addiction problems will also be launched, while around 440 million forints will be allocated immediately to support vulnerable adolescent girls and young mothers.
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Child abuse was systematic and ongoing
Child abuse within the child-protection system was systematic and ongoing, while the Orbán government knew about it but did nothing, Magyar said at the press conference in Budapest. He said the Interior Ministry, led by Sándor Pintér, knew precisely what was happening, MTI wrote.
According to the ministry’s own internal data, 1,959 cases of child abuse were recorded in state-run child-protection institutions in 2024, followed by a further 1,684 cases in 2025. Police complaints were filed on 2,249 occasions over the two-year period – an average of more than three reports every day. The true figure could be considerably higher, as many cases of abuse remained hidden, the Prime Minister said.
As a private citizen and a father, Magyar said he found it incomprehensible that the Orbán government had known about the abuse and had even created the conditions in which it occurred, yet did nothing when it saw the consequences.
In Magyar’s assessment, the Orbán government had not merely failed politically; it had also failed a basic test of humanity.
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