Contribution to the alternative report prepared by the Hungarian Child Rights Coalition on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

We have brought the following points to the attention of the drafters of the alternative report:

Access to justice and remedies, independent monitoring

Hungarian criminal justice practice still fails to treat victims of crime with sufficient sensitivity. It is common for victims of crime to feel lost during proceedings: they do not understand the legal language and are unaware of their rights and legal status in the procedure. The majority of criminal proceedings continue to focus on merely punishing the perpetrator rather than on redressing the harm caused. Child victims – especially if they belong to protected groups – are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of proceedings if they do not have sufficient representation. 

As evident from the deficiencies revealed in Chapter 4, state agencies are unable to effectively monitor closed institutions. Despite their previous successful investigations, human rights civil society organizations (the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, HCLU, Validity) were denied access entirely from 2017. It would be essential to re-establish independent civil monitoring.

Freedom of assembly, association

On April 14, 2025, the Hungarian Parliament passed the 15th Amendment to the Fundamental Law. The omnibus amendment redefines the constitutional hierarchy of fundamental rights by giving primacy, after the right to life, to the child’s right to protection and moral development. The fact that in case of concurrence, the right of the child prevails over every other fundamental right except for the right to life provides a constitutional basis for banning assemblies that are claimed to be “violating children’s rights.” Less than a month earlier the Hungarian Parliament adopted a new anti-Pride law that allows to ban assemblies which contravene the 2021 anti-LGBTQI Propaganda Law, i.e. the prohibition the depiction and promotion of “divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality” to people under 18. These legislative changes occurred amid the ongoing infringement proceeding at the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning Hungary’s anti-LGBTQI laws.These amendments – with the pretext of keeping the best interest of children in consideration – in reality arbitrarily restrict children’s rights to information, freedom of expression and assembly, contrary to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee.

Dissatisfaction with and within the public education system has been mounting for years in Hungary. Several demonstrations were held by students and their teachers, in early 2022, teachers’ unions began organising a strike to protest against, among others, heavy centralisation, shrinking autonomy, low wages and growing workload. As a reaction, the Government emptied out teachers’ right to strike in a government decree, abusing its excessive regulatory powers it continues to have in the ongoing special legal order. The European Court of Human Rights is currently investigating this legislation upon the submission of teachers’ unions. Since meaningful strike action was no longer possible, many teachers turned to civil disobedience, resulting in retaliatory dismissals throughout the autumn of 2022. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee represents some of the dismissed teachers of a prominent secondary school.

Torture, recovery and reintegration of child victims

In the spring of 2025, when criminal proceedings started, it was revealed that the director of the Budapest Juvenile Reformatory, which was responsible for the detention of juvenile boys, had for decades committed serious sexual and other violent crimes against children in the reformatory and others under his care or influence. In addition to him, the prosecution is currently imposing coercive measures against 10 other employees of the reformatory in connection with the same case. The crimes were not uncovered, even though the institution was regularly inspected by the prosecutor, the supervising body, the ombudsperson, and the guardians. According to some claims, no investigation took place despite police reports. The high number of cases, their long-standing unrevealed nature, and the lack of investigation, indicate that the most vulnerable children under state care lack adequate representation, they lack meaningful access to the justice system, and crimes committed against them – even serious ones – often go uninvestigated and unpunished.

According to information from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, even in these serious cases where criminal proceedings were actually conducted, legal, psychological and social support for child victims, their social integration, and just compensation were lacking, there are no comprehensive or institutional solutions for this, so the children are at extremely high risk of revictimization. In the case of the Budapest Juvenile Reformatory, the government officials made numerous serious statements blaming the victims, and not a single high-level government representative spoke of reparations.

Children deprived of family environment, children of incarcerated parents and adoption

Adoption

Despite the fact that countless children are waiting to be adopted, families wishing to adopt often face obstacles, especially if they belong to a minority group. Thus, only after a lengthy legal process, with the help of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, was a same-sex couple able to adopt their second child; legal proceedings regarding the discrimination they faced in this case are still ongoing. As for the British-Afghan couple, even after years of a heroic legal battle, they were unable to adopt the little Roma girl with special needs who had been living with them for years prior to that.

Cases related to children in state care

Ombudsman reports indicate that serious, systematic abuse of children occurred in various child welfare institutions, and child prostitution was widespread. According to an official report published in 2021, one-fifth of children in state care have experienced some form of abuse while in institutional care. In the vast majority of these cases, no effective proceedings were initiated, or there is no information available on such proceedings.

Children of incarcerated parents

Children with incarcerated parents remain a largely invisible and insufficiently supported vulnerable group of children in Hungary. It is estimated that approximately 52,000 children each year experience the incarceration of a parent in the country, yet their rights and needs are rarely recognised in criminal justice practice. Authorities, including the police and the National Penitentiary Administration, generally do not treat children as independent rights holders, and they are seldom informed of their rights or provided with child-sensitive support when a parent becomes involved in criminal proceedings or enters detention. Families report significant obstacles when attempting to maintain contact with detained parents, including the complete absence of child-sensitive procedures within prisons. These shortcomings contribute to stigma, emotional distress, and social exclusion among affected children, many of whom already face socio-economic disadvantage.

Although some improvements have been made in recent years regarding the conditions of prison visits, meaningful child-parent contact remains severely limited. In 2024, Hungarian prisons were required to introduce more open conditions for certain types of visits, allowing children to interact with their incarcerated parent in a less restrictive environment than in the past. However, such child-friendly family visits are organised as required by law only once every six months, which falls far short of international standards and children’s needs. According to the Council of Europe’s Recommendation, children should normally be able to visit an imprisoned parent within the first week of detention and thereafter on a regular and frequent basis, in principle once a week, with visits organised in a child-friendly environment that supports play, interaction and emotional bonding. The infrequency of visits, combined with the lack of trained staff and suitable facilities, prevents many children from maintaining meaningful relationships with their incarcerated parents and undermines their rights under Article 9 of the UNC

Asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children

Applying for asylum 

Since May 2020, a new, extremely restrictive asylum system has been introduced in Hungary. As a result, since 26 May 2020, except for a few rare exceptions, nobody can submit an application for international protection in Hungary, including people staying legally in the country.  Between 2020 and 2024, children who were not pushed back at the border were required to submit a statement of intent at the Embassy in Belgrade or Kyiv in order to apply for asylum. In practice this was done through a guardian, who had to travel to Belgrade1 in person, placing an additional burden on the already stretched capacities of legal guardians. Since 2025, unaccompanied and separated children can apply for asylum within Hungary. However, this does not guarantee that children living in Hungary with family members, yet fearing to return to their country of origin, have the right to apply for asylum. As a result, these children are being systematically denied the right to seek asylum. This system was found to be in breach of EU legislation by CJEU judgment C-823/21; however, Hungary has not complied with the ruling. 

Appointment of legal guardian 

The law provides for the appointment of a guardian (who acts as the legal representative) upon identification of an unaccompanied and separated child (UaSC). However, as the system is heavily overburdened, the appointment of guardians happens with significant delays, which result in UaSCs not receiving timely and adequate information about their basic rights, and often leads to children continuing their journey to other EU countries. In 2023, there were several significant delays in appointing guardians to UaSCs, with waiting periods of 3 to 4 weeks. These delays in appointing guardians persisted in 2024 and 2025. 

Duration of asylum procedure 

Although the Asylum Act provides asylum procedures involving unaccompanied children shall be conducted as a matter of priority, this obligation consistently goes unmet in practice. In 2021, the entire asylum procedure was conducted in the case of only one unaccompanied child, lasting 7 months from entry to the delivery of the decision; in 2022, the same was true for only one unaccompanied boy, with the procedure lasting 5 months. In 2023, the NDGAP conducted the repeated procedure of one UaSC. This procedure lasted 6-7 months. In 2024, one procedure lasted 11 months and one procedure lasted 10 months in 2025.  These figures should be viewed in a light of the fact that since 2020, the number of asylum applications has decreased dramatically, with only around 30 applications being made each year, and with a slight increase in 2025, when 109 applications were made.  

Interviewing children 

If the NDGAP has already obtained information indicating that an asylum-seeker is a survivor of ill-treatment or displays signs of trauma, the interview is conducted by a specifically trained case officer. However, as there is no formal mechanism to identify these asylum-seekers, there is a risk that such an applicant is interviewed by a case officer who is not appropriately trained. It has also happened that minors, victims of torture or traumatised asylum-seekers were not interviewed in a proper room with suitable conditions for such interviews. Due to the lack of space, and due to organisational shortcomings by the former IAO and NDGAP, interviews sometimes take place in a room where there are other case officers. One interview room is stationed behind a front desk used by the Police. This means that vulnerable asylum-seekers, among them children have to go into their interview right before the Police, whose presence and physical proximity they may feel to be intimidating.2  

Age-assessment of unaccompanied children 

The law does not provide for an identification mechanism for unaccompanied and separated children. The Asylum Act only foresees that an age assessment can be carried out in case there are doubts as to the alleged age of the applicant.3 Since the closure of the transit zones in 2020, the HHC is aware of only one age assessment procedure carried out in 2021. The information provided by the NDGAP confirms that there was only one asylum-seeker subjected to age assessment in 2021 where the examination concluded that the asylum-seeker was indeed a child.4 The main method employed was a dental examination and the observation of the child’s physical appearance, e.g., weight, height etc., and the child’s sexual maturity. The primary and secondary sexual characteristics were also examined, which the HHC considers to be a violation of the child’s human dignity. In the context of age assessment, the NDGAP does not use a psychosocial assessment.  

Up to the time of writing, no protocol has been adopted to provide for uniform standards on age assessment examinations carried out by the police and the NDGAP. The police elaborated a non-binding protocol for the purpose of police-ordered age assessment examinations which provides a checklist to be followed by doctors commissioned to carry out the examination.5 This protocol, which was published in 2014, did not consider the psychosocial or intercultural elements of age assessment, only foreseeing that in case the applicant (the subject of the age assessment) is suspected to be a victim of sexual violence, follow-up assistance from a psychologist may be requested (but this is not automatic and the HHC has never assisted a case where the authorities would refer the applicant to a psychologist ex officio). There is no direct remedy to challenge the age assessment opinion. It can only be challenged through an appeal against the negative decision in the asylum procedure, which cannot be considered an effective remedy as in practice several months pass by the time the rejected application reaches the judicial phase of the procedure. Inadequate safeguards in the age assessment process can result in minors being detained or denied the legal protections to which they are entitled, without an access to an effective remedy.  

Pushbacks 

Since 2016, legal amendments entered into force that allowed the Hungarian police to automatically push back asylum-seekers who were apprehended within 8 km of the Serbian-Hungarian or Croatian- Hungarian border to the external side of the border fence, without registering their data or allowing them to submit an asylum claim, in a summary procedure lacking the most basic procedural safeguards (e.g. access to an interpreter or legal assistance).6 As of 28 March 2017, due to legislation enacted by the government to be applied in the continuously extended state of emergency, anyone unlawfully staying in Hungary is pushed back to Serbia from the entire territory of Hungary. There are many child victims of (violent) pushbacks, whether they are unaccompanied minors or children arriving with their families. Those pushed back have no practical opportunities to file a complaint, are denied the right to apply for international protection, and many of them are also physically abused by personnel in uniforms and injured as a consequence. On 17 December 2020 the CJEU issued a judgement in the case C-808/18 and ruled that moving illegally staying third-country nationals to a border area, without observing the guarantees surrounding a return procedure constitutes infringements of EU law.7 In addition, there are dozens of judgments condemning Hungary for violent pushbacks, for example K.P. v. Hungary8 and R.N. v. Hungary9 concern the pushback of unaccompanied minors. Despite the above judgments, pushbacks continue on a daily basis, and without any regard if a person is underage, vulnerable, or expresses the wish to seek asylum.  

Healthcare services for temporary protection holders 

Since 2022, people fleeing from Ukraine have been granted temporary protection status, which entitles them to subsistence allowance, free education, free healthcare and state-provided accommodation (since 2023, with significant limitations)10. However, in HHC’s experience, until the day of writing, healthcare providers are still unaware that beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine are entitled to a wide range of healthcare services free of charge with their temporary protection card, or Hungarian or Ukrainian documents (e.g., passport, Ukrainian ID card). Although the Hungarian legislature had provided for the creation of a “technical ID” to replace the social security number (TAJ card)11, even three years after the outbreak of the war, in 2025, many healthcare providers still had problems providing free healthcare services to Ukrainian refugees, which meant that many children were left without medicine in winter, or were not admitted to hospitals with serious illnesses. 

Changes in accommodation for people fleeing from Ukraine 

When the war against Ukraine broke out, people fleeing Ukraine were eligible for subsidised housing, which helped refugee families restart their lives, begin integrating into their new environment, and settle their children into new schools. There have been several significant changes to the legislation since then, which have increasingly restricted state-subsidised housing available to Ukrainian families. First, on 1 August 2023, the Hungarian government amended the decree12 on the care of persons arriving from Ukraine. In violation of the Constitution, government agencies and protection commissions began to interpret the amended provisions as excluding both parents of underage children from eligibility for subsidised housing. This created a difficult situation for families and accommodation providers alike, forcing many families to move away. Secondly, from 21 August 2024, a new amendment13 has been introduced: only beneficiaries of temporary protection coming from regions of Ukraine that the Hungarian government considers to be “directly” affected by the war became eligible for accommodation and support.  According to the amended legislation, the list of directly affected regions should be updated monthly — however, since July 2024, and despite new regions being affected by the war, the list has not been updated. Even if someone arrives from a “war-affected region”, they can only receive support beyond the first month of arrival if they are (i) a pregnant woman, (ii) a parent of a child under six, (iii) a person with a disability, (iv) over 65 years old, or (v) a minor living in the same household as someone from the previous categories. As of May 2025, in addition to existing eligibility requirements, refugees must request and take up access to accommodation within 90 days of being granted temporary protection or, if vulnerability arises later, within 90 days of the onset of that vulnerability. These changes have had an enormously negative effect on families and children, as their integration and education have been interrupted by forced relocation, and many families still move constantly from place to place because they cannot find affordable housing. 

Family life of migrant families 

The family life and the best interest of Hungarian children with a third-country national parent are often not taken into account. This is due to the rule that applications for a family reunification residence permit submitted within Hungary are generally not permitted for those coming from countries that require a visa. In practice, this means that a person must travel back to their country of origin and apply through the Hungarian embassy there, which leads to families either being torn apart, or family members following them outside of the European Union, thereby depriving them of the benefits of their EU citizenship. The above national legislation is not in line with European Union law, where Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides that where a dependency between an EU citizen and a third-country national is established, the third-country national should be granted the right of residence, including the right to work.14 Dependency is most commonly established in the parent-child relationship. However, this provision is still not applied automatically by the authorities and has only been considered by the courts in procedures challenging rejection decisions, which leads to children being separated from their parents, or to children leaving the European Union and living abroad while their parent’s status is resolved.