In 2007, Parliament adopted the strategy “A better future for children” with the unanimous support of all political groups. Today’s opposition has now called for an inventory of how the strategy is being implemented.
Late on Monday afternoon, a debate initiated by the opposition took place in Parliament until the evening hours. The DK recalled the birth of the strategy, which was launched by consensus at the initiative of the Gyurcsány government. Because there is agreement that all children deserve extraordinary protection and that the interests of children come above all others, said Gergely Arató.
Politics just for the shop window
Agnes Kunhalmi The MSZP brought the pardon scandal into play as the trigger for the special debate, where the accomplice of a pedophile sex offender who had received his just punishment was pardoned for political reasons. Immediately after the scandal became known, the Socialists called for the establishment of a committee of inquiry, but this was ignored by the government camp. With this, Fidesz has once again proven that its family-friendly policies are only intended for the shop window.
Tímea Szabó von der Párbeszéd went further and attacked the “homophobic” law that was passed “under the guise of child protection”. It banned gender reassignment of children, even though there were no precedents for this. At the same time, the government is leaving thousands of children to suffer in homes and with foster parents. Every third child is “lifted” out of poverty and taken into state care.
A perspective for young people
Gabriella Selmeczi Fidesz pointed out that even if there was national unity on the issue in 2007, the left-wing governments at the time were just saying empty phrases. The Orbán government, which has been in office since 2010, laid down its system of values in the Basic Law and launched a generous housing support program (CSOK) that supported 230,000 families with a total of 750 billion forints. In addition to other measures such as tax credits, she highlighted that more than a million children now receive free meals.
On behalf of the small coalition partner KDNP, István Hollik listed further achievements and then summed up: “Today, Hungary is a country that offers prospects to young people who are about to start a family. And it is a safe country that strives to stay out of armed conflict because that is in the interests of the children.”
Low wages provoke child poverty
Among other speakers from the opposition, Anna Orosz from Momentum complained that the government lacks the political will to protect children when, for example, B. Children are taken away from their families for purely material reasons. Same-sex couples who want to adopt children would be actively and consciously prevented from doing so.
Several MPs from the left camp called for the creation of the position of a children’s ombudsman.
Balázs Ander (Jobbik) misses social cohesion and a sense of security in the permanent economic crisis. Wages that do not even cover the subsistence level go hand in hand with child poverty – a million people are fobbed off with degrading wages. Starting before the fall of 1989/90, “globalist circles squeezed a total of $242 billion out of Hungary, systematically robbing the country and still robbing it today.”
“Shockingly” few births
In the lack of funding for social services Dora Duro from the Mi Hazánk the root of the problems. Today, women are once again giving birth to “shockingly” few children because they see that their extended families are becoming impoverished. The government’s family policy has shown success, but is not crisis-proof, which is why the demographic catastrophe is getting closer and closer.
Máté Kanász-Nagy (LMP) accused Fidesz of not having raised the rates for family allowances even once, even though that was exactly what the opposition promised in 2008. This government has indeed created work, but only cheap work in assembly plants. Housing subsidies, in turn, could only take advantage of the middle class. Nowhere in the EU does a child’s future depend more on the status of its parents than in Hungary.
#Child #protection #focus #Budapester #Zeitung