Katalin Novak - Photo: Facebook

President Novak: Job market, families need women

Both the job market and the family are places where women are needed, President Katalin Novak told the Women Deliver 2023 conference in Kigali on Monday, noting that in Hungary women can choose both thanks to government subsidies.

Countries do not secure equality for women by electing a female president, “but it is a very good start”, the president said during the opening panel discussion on improving the global status of women, the final programme of her official state visit to Rwanda.

She noted that more women in Hungary graduate from university each year than men.

Novak said women should have the option of giving birth to as many children as they want while finding a balance between family and career. Hungarian women with four or more children, she noted, no longer have to pay income tax during their lifetime.

A three-year state subsidy is available to fathers and grandparents for the purpose of helping to bring up children, she noted.

Meanwhile, the president said Hungary needed more female MPs as less than 15 percent of current lawmakers are women. Also, she said that while it was not up to her, she regretted that there would no longer be any female ministers in the Hungarian government from August 1.

Participating in the panel discussion were Macky Sall, president of Senegal, and Sahle-Work Zewde, president of Ethiopia, as well as Natalia Kanem, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Shabana Basij Rasikh, co-founder of the School of Leadership for Afghan women.

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