UN rights expert: Government should stop using conservative ideology to mask gender discrimination

Budapest, May 27 (MTI) – The Hungarian government should stop trying to cover up gender discrimination with an ideology based on “conservative family values”, a UN human rights expert said in Budapest on Friday.

Frances Raday, who heads the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Discrimination against Women, told a press conference that discrimination against women and strengthening the role of women should be treated as two separate issues.

The working group conducted its first assessment of discrimination against women in Hungary between May 17 and May 27.

Raday, who is also a law professor at the College of Management Academic Studies in Israel, said the government should consider the elimination of gender discrimination a priority. It can do this by helping to educate children on gender equality and human rights and by employing the help of human rights institutions and the media, she said.

Raday noted that Hungary’s constitution ensures equal rights for men and women and protects the institution of family. She said that as the fundamental unit of society, the family does indeed have a right to constitutional safeguards, but conservative family values should not be used to undermine women’s political, economic and social rights or gender equality. Strengthening the role of women and protecting their rights is essential for the well-being of families, she said.

Raday said Hungary is ranked 99th in a field of 145 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index.

She noted that a mere 10 percent of Hungary’s MPs are women and that there are no women at all among the members of the government.

Raday added, however, that the government has introduced a number of measures that have made it easier for women to balance work and family life.

UPDATE

In response, the human resources ministry said the UN officials find it “unacceptable” that the Hungarian government supports families through various means and schemes, and “artificially set the issues of supporting women and families against each other.”

The UN working group has presented the measures implemented by the government over the past years to support Hungarian women “in a one-sided an on occasions in a distorted way”, the ministry said in a statement.

These measures including the expansion of female employment by launching an additional child care benefit scheme, developing the day-care system for children and allowing early retirement after 40 years of service stand against the group’s position that the government “idealises women only as housewives or mothers”, it said.

The government will remain committed towards supporting women in Hungary, the statement said.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters