children

President Novák: Starting a family will save the world

The world can be saved by starting a family, Katalin Novák told students of church-run Bingham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Katalin Novák told the students that she wanted to meet members of a generation that could “make a difference in the world”.

The West, she said, was experiencing a “demographic ice age” and not a single European country had a replacement rate for keeping population numbers steady.

The president outlined Hungarian government family policy measures that encourage childbearing, noting that the number of marriages has doubled in the past decade, while the number of failed pregnancies had halved.

She said it was not worth sacrificing family life and childbearing for the sake of a career.

Meanwhile, asked about the war in Ukraine, Novák said Hungary, as a neighbour of the country, prized peace above all else, and countries far removed from the conflict did not properly understand the situation. Novák noted that Hungarians citizens of Ukraine had also lost their lives in the war.

She said the US would inevitably become involved in the peace process and assume a primary role. With a US president “on the side of peace”, the chance of peace in Ukraine was far higher, she added.

On the topic of religion, Novák said Hungary would never abandon its Christianity of one thousand years. Tolerance, she added, was an important value but “we cannot be tolerant by denying our identity”.

The president also held talks with Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of the state of Utah, in the state legislature.

Cox praised Hungary’s pro-family approach which the state of Utah, he said, shared in many respects, with faith playing a role. He said his state runs a family affairs office whose job is to protect families and encourage childbearing.

Read also:

September 27, 2023

PHOTOS, VIDEO: Budapest’s iconic square beautifully renewed

Hild Square is in the heart of the Hungarian capital, located close to Budapest Eye and Hungary’s iconic Chain Bridge. Now, the square and its playground have been beautifully renewed.

According to Demokrata, the playground of the square is the first of its kind. Its design theme is centred around the Kuflik tales of András Dániel. Furthermore, it is accessible even for kids with disabilities. On yesterday’s opening day, families were welcomed with cheerful celebration, children’s storytelling, concerts and various other kids’ programmes.

The Fidesz mayor of the district, Péter Szentgyörgyvölgy, said that community effort played a huge role in the creation of the project, and they are proud to have the first playground suitable for disabled children. They planted thirteen new trees in the area using special green techniques and water-saving methods. He highlighted their aim was to create a modern public space and a family-friendly park. The project was co-financed by the local government, the Szerencsejáték Ltd and Hungarian state energy giant MVM. A toilet, a nappy changing table and a drinking fountain also serve the visitors.

Read also:

Magnificent downtown Budapest square to be renewed – Read more HERE
Renewed Buda Castle will look astonishing – Check out the details and some photos in THIS article

Here is a video and some photos:

September 18, 2023

Ominous forecast, fewer and fewer Hungarians

Hungary will have no future, and the nation cannot be preserved unless the birth rate can be raised, President Katalin Novák said in an interview published in the weekly Mandiner on Thursday.

The fifth Budapest Demographic Summit starting on Thursday will be attended by heads of state and government, as well as Nobel laureate economist James Hackman, psychologist Jordan Peterson and inspirational speaker Nick Vujicic. The congress will focus on the family as a key factor of security, she said.

The number of children born in Hungary is falling each year, and the number of women in childbearing age has fallen by 20 percent in the past 20 years, she said.

The state has a role in ensuring that raising children does not come with financial setbacks, and that families with children don’t live in worse conditions than those without children, she said.

Hungary maintains its commitment to supporting families even amid the economic difficulties resulting from the war in Ukraine. Hungary is “spending on the verge of its capacities” to fulfil that commitment, she said. “That is not an expense but the best investment,” she said.

Commenting on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that he is ready to provide all rights to Hungarians living in Ukraine that Ukrainians in Hungary enjoy, Novák said that step would be “an important step forward”.

“Reliability is an important characteristic of countries aspiring to become European Union member states. I trust that the Ukrainian president is a serious man and meant what he said,” she added.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will attend the summit, Novák said. Hungary supports her efforts to ensure the economic stability and strengthen traditional values in her country, as well as to stop migration, she said.

Regarding Sweden’s NATO accession, Novák said: “I definitely think that we should support Sweden’s NATO integration.” The decision is with Hungary’s parliament, she added.

September 14, 2023

Minister: Demographics indicators show significant progress in Hungary

Hungary had the fastest growth in total fertility rate (TFR) in the European Union over the past decade but “we are not yet where we would like to be”, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Wednesday, referring to the 5th Budapest Demographic Summit to be held on Thursday and Friday.

Gergely Gulyás told a regular press briefing that in 2010, when the civic government of Hungary received its mandate to introduce new demographics policies, the TFR was 1.23 and it went up to 1.59 by the end of 2021. This represented a 25.6% increase, the largest in the EU over the past decade, he added.

At the same time, there are some difficulties, with the number of women of child-bearing age on the decrease, which makes it all the more important that family policy measures remain effective, he said. Gulyás said the cabinet had assessed a proposal on replacing “city CSOK” subsidies in a first reading on Wednesday.

Read also:

September 14, 2023

Breaking: Hungarian-Ukrainian agreement, President Novák’s life in danger in Kyiv

Hungarian-President-agreement-Ukraine-air-raid

Katalin Novák, Hungary’s President, is on an official visit to Kyiv to have extensive talks with President Zelensky. The chief purpose of the visit was to sign a mutual agreement. Throughout the day, the Hungarian president was exposed to life-threatening conditions, she even had to hide in a shelter for an hour.

According to Novák’s official Facebook page, the agreement between her and Zelensky contains the following five points:

1. A direct communication channel will be established between the two presidents;
2. They will update the agreement concerning the relationship between the two countries;
3. Hungary joins the negotiations about the peace settlement initiated by the Ukrainian President;
4. Hungary and Ukraine cooperates in helping war-stricken children and their families;
5. The minority rights of the Transcarpathian Hungarians will be promptly safeguarded.

During her visit, Novák first went to the Transcarpathian region where an indigenous Hungarian community of tens of thousands reside. They are strongly determined to preserve their ethnicity despite the raging war and the booming Ukrainian nationalism. As we reported HERE, the Hungarian President then attended the Third Summit of the Crimea Platform in Kyiv, where she was personally invited by the Ukrainian President.

Inflation devoured family allowance in Hungary

The opposition Jobbik-Conservatives party has called for the family allowance to be doubled and proposed that recipients be required to spend the benefits on the needs of their children.

Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Jobbik lawmaker Dániel Z Kárpát criticised the government’s “insufficient” back-to-school support measures, saying it was not enough to transfer the September family allowance at the end of August. He proposed the introduction of a “family card” on which families would get double the monthly allowance to cover back-to-school expenses.

The regular monthly allowance should also be doubled because “more than half” of its value has been lost due to inflation, he said. Putting monthly family allowances on the family card would ensure the money is spent on food and other items required to raise children, instead of on gambling and tobacco products, he added.

August 13, 2023

Hungarian children in danger?

The opposition Socialist Party urges the government to take “real measures” to protect children in the light of cases of abuse becoming more frequently known to the public, the deputy group leader of the party said on Saturday.

There have been recently serious child abuse cases coming to light “on a weekly basis” which is why the issue of child protection is receiving increased attention, Zita Gurmai told an online press conference. Children most often become victim to domestic violence she said, adding that violence during confrontation with foster parents were also prevalent. “There have also been instances of sexual harassment and paedophilia in a school or church environment and children in care homes often become victim to juvenile prostitution,” Gurmai said.

She criticised the government for “using the issue of child protection as a demagogic, inciting campaign tool” while fully neglecting acts that threaten the safety of children. Gurmai said the Socialists called on the government to revise rules on foster parents and on access rights so that children are not forced to have contact with the abusive parent, and to develop the system of monitoring potential threats.

The lawmaker said she had submitted a written question to the prime minister asking Viktor Orban “when and in what way he intends to fulfil his duties defined in the child protection law?”.

There are fewer children in Hungary again, read our article HERE. In THIS article you may read about a 13-year-old boy who was given a gun license. HERE you can read about a 9-year-old, who shot down the popular ‘Swiss wolf’ in Hungary.

August 6, 2023

Ukrainian refugee kids welcomed in Hungarian children’s summer camps

The Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA) and the Hungarian Scout Association are organising summer camps throughout the season for more than 300 children who fled to Hungary from war-torn Ukraine, the organisers said on Friday.

The camps are held in Budapest and Nagykovácsi near the capital, and offer games, arts and outings, they said. They aim to help 5-16-year-olds to move past the trauma of experiencing war and to build a new community. Another goal is to ease the burden on the parents, they said.

HIA provides complex aid to refugees from Ukraine, including donations of clothes, medicine, food and hygiene products, but also helps with administrative tasks and provides legal and psychological aid, helps in tackling housing and in overcoming the language barrier, Zoltan Sipos, the head of HIA’s centre for supporting Ukraine refugees said.

HIA is also holding camps for some 150 internally displaced Ukrainian children in Viska, in southwest Ukraine.

Before, Lénárd Borbély, Csepel’s non-aligned mayor, announced on Facebook that they welcomed a group of kids from Transcarpathia in their brand new activity centre near the River Danube. Here are some photos:

August 5, 2023

PHOTOS: Erzsébet summer camps kick off in Hungary

The foundation that runs the Erzsébet camps for children opened the summer season with a meeting of partners in Zánka, on Lake Balaton, on Saturday.

Ágnes Hornung, the state secretary for families, said the Erzsébet summer camps formed an “important element” of the government’s family policy. As well as providing support to families whose children are campers, the government has upgraded infrastructure in recent years to ensure children the latest amenities and a safe environment, she added. Hornung noted that the Erzsébet camps had hosted more than 180,000 children last year, a tenfold increase since 2012.

June 11, 2023

There are fewer Hungarians again, where could it end?

Preliminary data show that 6,352 children were born and 10,096 people died in April 2023, with the number of live births down 2.7 percent from the same period a year earlier, while deaths decreased by 10 percent, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said on Thursday.

The natural population loss was 3,744 in April this year as against 4,688 in April 2022, KSH said.

In April 2023, 3,464 couples tied the knot, down 31 percent from April 2022.

In the past 12 months, 89,749 children were born, down 0.2 percent from the same period of last year, while 131,205 people died, 10 percent fewer than in the previous year.

The natural population loss came to 41,456 year on year, a drop of 26 percent, compared with 55,867 in the same period last year in Hungary.

Between May 2022 and April 2023, 58,515 couples were married, 17 percent fewer than in the previous year.

May 25, 2023

Bonkers: 13-year-old boy given a gun licence in Hungary

A 13-year-old boy in Hungary obtained a gun licence through a client portal. The case was investigated by the police and his certificate was revoked over than a month later.

A gun for a 13-year-old?

A 13-year-old boy smoothly obtained a gun licence through a client portal without any difficulties. The child already possessed an alarm pistol, which he bought with his pocket money in a gun shop in Budapest. Under the law, minors are allowed to purchase a gun in Hungary.

The boy’s parents knew about the gun, but they did not allow him to take it along when leaving the house. The boy spent days browsing the Internet on how he could acquire an official permit, and due to a system malfunction, his quest was successful.

“We thought he stood no chance to get a certificate, so we let him get on with it. On the website, you had to enter your personal information and the details of the gas gun. As he’s only 13, I was positive he’d get caught in the system’s filter, as age is a prerequisite for a gun licence. Then one morning, the postman knocked at our door handing over a plastic card in an envelope with my son’s name, the type of gun and the serial number,” recalled the boy’s shocked father.

The case came to light when the boy lost his licence. The police launched an investigation and interviewed the head of the family. The Budapest Police Headquarters told Blikk that an administrative error had occurred.

Zsolt Kardos, the manager of a gun shop in Debrecen, said, “Buying a pistol today is like taking a sweater off the shelf in the shop. Anyone can do it.”

More than a month-long investigation closed

Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said that the investigation has been closed. “Due to an administrative error, the competent authority did not legally issue a permit for a minor to carry a gas and alarm weapon for self-defence purposes,” said Bence Rétvári, Minister of State and Ágnes Vadai, member of the Democratic Coalition.

Pintér added that it was an unprecedented case. According to the Interior Minister, the licence was withdrawn on 29 March, writes 24.hu.

May 4, 2023

Paedophile forum shot down by Hungarian police

According to the Chief Prosecution Office of the Capital, six people have been accused in the case. The main culprit is a 47-year-old man who created the international paedophile forum in 2018. Users of the website shared pornographic content including minors through secret channels on the dark web.

The culprits

The paedophile forum ran on the private computer of the man. At the time of its shutdown, it had several thousand domestic and international users and hundreds of daily visitors. He not only shared a huge amount of child pornography on the website but also supervised it, moderating the comments and the content allowed, reported Index.

The other culprits were regular visitors to the website. They shared pornographic content depicting minors through private messages and central chat windows. Through the latter, they regularly shared pictures and videos with hundreds of people.

Criminal process

At the time of the arrests, the detectives seized several electronic and storage devices, including the server on which the forum ran. Thus, the website was brought down, finally. On the confiscated data carriers they found tens of thousands of horrendous child pornographic recordings.

According to the indictment, four of those accused participated in sexual acts with minors under the age of 12. One abused their own child, another their foster daughter, while the third committed heinous acts on their half-sibling. They shared the recordings of the sexual abuse on the forum as well.

The prosecutor’s office is pursuing a jail sentence without the possibility of parole for the culprits. In addition, it’s looking to permanently bar them from any kind of profession through which they could come into contact with minors.

Unfortunately, such cases are not isolated incidents anymore in Hungary. This week another story surfaced about a child molestation case involving a teacher at a Catholic school. A few years ago, in 2020, the Hungarian Ambassador to Peru, Gábor Kaleta was also found guilty of the possession of 19,000 pictures depicting child pornography. However, at the time he received only a fine of mere 1,400 euros for the offence.

April 29, 2023

Brutal assault against Hungarian mother: attacker hit her in front of her children

A cyclist brutally assaulted a Hungarian mother in Szentendre, after the woman called her out for endangering her child.

A shocking assault occurred last weekend, as a cyclist brutally attacked a woman in front of her children, ripost.hu reports. According to an eyewitness, who wished to remain anonymous, a woman was walking her dog with her children in a less frequented part of Szentendre, when a cyclist reached them from behind at high speed, nearly hitting one of the children.

“The cyclist, aged 45, was coming from the direction of the Danube. When he reached the family, one of the small children stepped out a foot in front of him and barely avoided being hit. This all happened because the cyclist didn’t ring the bell nor did he slow down even though he was coming from behind” – the witness recalled the incident to Ripost.

Then, according to the witness’s testimony, the woman yelled at him. She called him out on his reckless behaviour, which greatly angered the man.

“The guy got off his bike, walked up to her and punched her hard with his fist, without saying a word. She fell into the ditch, but had the presence of mind to grab the man’s shirt by the neck and pull him down too.”

As the woman wrestled with the man in the ditch, her young children, in shock, were crying out frantically for their mother. The assaulter wanted to flee the scene, but then two other men and the woman’s husband arrived to help her out and held the man back until the police arrived.

The prosecution quickly follows the assault

According to the Szentendre Police Department, the man was promptly taken to the police station and is currently being prosecuted for assault. A case has already been opened, and he is being charged with attempted aggravated assault following the mother’s press of charges.

Meanwhile, according to index.hu, in a local Facebook group, the witnesses tried to identify the attacker, who is allegedly an educated individual with a degree and the CEO of a social research company.

The assault shocked Hungarian society, as such attacks are rather unusual against women. According to the latest of TIME magazine, Budapest is the 2nd safest destination in Europe for women.

April 26, 2023

Brutal photo: a little girl’s hand caught in a meat grinder in Hungary

The Heim Paul Hungarian Children’s Hospital has published a horrifying photo on social media. The picture depicts a two-year-old girl with her hand stuck in a meat grinder.

Brutal photo

“Yes, unfortunately, everyone can see …. those fingers belong to a 2-year-old girl,” Heim Pál Children’s Hospital, Hungary’s largest children’s hospital, wrote on its Facebook page. The photo shows a child with a hand stuck in a meat grinder taken to the hospital.

The child had reached into the grinder and its pulley had pulled the little girl’s hand in and her fingers were almost up to the blades, rtl.hu reports.

According to the hospital, “the child was brought to our Surgery Department along with the electric meat grinder, where our hand surgeons, Dr. Gabriella Wéber and Dr. István Füle, operated on the child’s bone, nerve and tendon injuries in a bloodless state.” Heim Paul mentions that the surgery was successful, the circulation of the damaged tissues was restored, no signs of infection were detected, and the child’s hand will be restored to full function.

Word of caution

Dr. Anikó Nagy, Chief Medical Director, was grateful to the doctors and nurses of the hospital who work tirelessly to do what they do best: provide the highest quality of care for children.

The Heim Pál National Institute of Paediatrics performs nearly 2 million procedures a year. This makes it one of the largest independent children’s hospitals in Europe. The hospital aims to treat patients with the highest possible level of professionalism in all areas of paediatrics. Each year, they receive nearly 35,000 inpatients and one and a half million children and adolescents treated as outpatients.

The police station of Nagykőrös started proceedings against a 55-year-old woman for endangering a minor in connection with the case. According to information from the Pest Vármegyei headquarters, the person is the grandmother of the little girl.

The girl was taken by ambulance to Heim Pál Hospital. The hospital concludes its post with the words “Let’s take better care of our children.”

April 25, 2023

Fidesz: EU aggressively attacks our ‘child protection law’

Hungary’s ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance “rejects the European Commission’s aggressive, brutal attack against the country’s child protection law,” Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch said in a video statement on Wednesday, adding that the government would “protect” the contested legislation.

Deutsch said that at a referendum last year “nearly 4 million parents and grandparents” had supported the legislation against “gender ideology” and “increasingly aggressive attacks by LGBTQ activists”.

Read also: Hungarian Football Federation: Banners depicting Greater Hungary not racist manifestations + Romania’s answer – UPDATE: UEFA

The MEP said it was “Hungarian parents’ inalienable right to make decisions concerning their children’s sex education”, and insisted that “children are sacred and inviolable”. “We will protect Hungarian children … we will defend the child protection law,” he said.

Deutsch called it “shameful” that “representatives of the Hungarian Dollar Left are inciting governments across Europe against the Hungarian child protection law”. He said the European Parliament’s siding with the law’s opponents was “outrageous”.

Read alsoEven Romania is ahead of Hungary in adopting the euro

March 23, 2023

VIDEO: Hungarian Olympic champion Iron Lady Hosszú made big announcement

Katinka Hosszú is a three times Olympic champion Hungarian swimmer, a one-of-a-kind sports phenomenon in the history of Hungarian swimming. Hosszú made a jaw-dropping announcement yesterday affecting her career and even the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Katinka Hosszú, Hungary’s Iron Lady

According to Helló Magyar, Katinka Hosszú has been one of the most successful Hungarian athletes. During her career spanning decades, she won three Olympic gold medals and was long-course world champion nine times. Furthermore, she could stand on Europe’s top fifteen times. She is the owner of a Budapest-based swim school and club called Iron Swim Budapest and co-owner and captain of Team Iron, founding member of the International Swimming League.

She is also the current world record holder in the 100-meter individual medley, 200-meter individual medley (long course and short course), 400-meter individual medley (long course) and 200-meter backstroke (short course). She was the first swimmer (male or female) to hold world records in all five individual medley events. However, now she faces an unprecedented challenge in her life, affecting her career, which she talked about in a video posted on her Instagram page.

Read also: Hungarian Iron Lady Katinka Hosszú opens her restaurant!

Baby will arrive soon

Leaders of the Hungarian swimming world have been guessing for weeks about Hosszú’s possible pregnancy. Press wrote some weeks ago that the ‘Iron Lady’ is in the fourth month, but she refused to comment on such news. That came to an end yesterday. She did not join the Hungarian national team in Tenerife for their winter training camp to prepare for participating in the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024. That was also a sign for many.

She acknowledged news about the pregnancy last night in a video uploaded on her Instagram. The father is Máté Gelencsér, who married Hosszú in the summer of 2022 (our featured image was taken at the wedding). Hosszú and her former husband and coach, Shane Tusup, divorced in 2018.

Read also: Hungarian Iron Lady Katinka Hosszú became victim of a brutal robbery!

In some previous interviews, she did not hide that she would like to become a mother. She also said that her number one aim is no longer swimming. Below, you can watch the video in which she announced her baby news. In the beginning, some of her fellow swimmers praise and characterise Hosszú with just one word. The Hungarian Iron Lady concludes that list with her word: ‘mother’.

A bejegyzés megtekintése az Instagramon

Katinka Hosszu (@hosszukatinka) által megosztott bejegyzés

March 17, 2023

Hungarian minister: ‘We will go clear on to the end to protect our children’

Justice Minister Judit Varga on Wednesday submitted a counter-appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union within the EU’s infringement procedure launched against Hungary over its child protection legislation.

“Hungary will keep its end up,” the minister said on Facebook. The Hungarian government sticks to its position that “education is a national competency and parents should have the right to make decisions concerning the upbringing of their children,” the minister said.

Read also: Defence minister in Sweden and Finland: Hungary deserves more respect!

“As we have done before, we will go clear on to the end when it comes to protecting our children,” she said. Referring to recent cases, the minister said the child protection law was necessary, adding that “even further measures” would be needed.

Read alsoHungarian opposition: Let us take action against violence against women

March 9, 2023

One of Europe’s most rigorous animal protection laws in Hungary

The justice ministry has set up a foundation for enhancing animal welfare and protection in Hungary.

Government sets up animal welfare foundation

The foundation aims to promote animal welfare and responsible animal husbandry, and to strengthen cooperation with relevant NGOs, the justice minister told a press conference on Thursday, introducing the Animal Protection Our Joint Cause Foundation. Judit Varga noted that Hungary recently passed one of Europe’s most rigorous animal protection laws in response to a survey in which 260,000 contributed their views. The law has broadened the definition of animal torture, she said.

The foundation is the first of its kind in Hungary aiming to involve everyone with long-standing experience in animal welfare, including civil groups, experts, the authorities and local councils, Varga said. The government has donated 250 million forints to the foundation, the minister noted.

Read also: World-famous Hungarian honey in danger!

Family support includes help for single parents

The government’s support programmes for families also cover single parents, the justice minister told a conference on the subject on Thursday.
Judit Varga said that assisting families was “something like a maternal instinct” for the government, which was “constantly fine-tuning” the system. The minister noted that the government plans to submit a bill tightening up the child protection law to parliament during its spring season. Children are “sacred and inviolable” in Hungary, she added.

The minister said Hungary spent 6.2 percent of GDP on family support in 2021, which she called a world record, adding that many countries had showed an interest in the Hungarian system. The government has made the child support more client-friendly and single parents would be helped “in every possible way.”

Hungarian family, New Zealand, family business, entrepreneur, Hungarian restaurant

Read also50,000 people signed a petition in New Zealand not to deport a Hungarian family

March 3, 2023