Peter Magyar calls for functioning child protection regime at Budapest demonstration

Magyar also demanded that the government and Interior Minister Sandor Pinter, who oversees the child protection network, apologise to the children who had been abused by paedophiles at an orphanage in Bicske, in western Hungary.

At the same time, he called on the interior minister to retire “because he is incapable of carrying out his responsibilities” which include managing the police force, education and health care.

Magyar said the government’s new child protection law package would not help tackle the problems, only shifted responsibility onto the courts. He argued that the only deterrent would be if there was “a real risk of getting caught”.

He cited a child abuse case that had been known about for eight months in which the suspect had only been arrested after he had called attention to the case in a post on Facebook.

He said the real solution would be to create a police force tasked with investigating sex crimes against children and to ensure that child protection institutions are not underfunded. Magyar argued that today there were half as many experts working in the child protection network as would be needed.