Since 2015, Hintalovon Child Rights Foundation has been working on children’s rights in Hungary through projects combining psychological and social services, child protection and legal knowledge. Hintalovon’s work focuses on violence against children, including protection from sexual exploitation, child safeguarding, children’s rights to education, and child participation. They provide free legal aid service to child victims, and to meet the increasing customer demand Hintalovon broadened and transformed their legal aid service, with the implementation of the anonymous Child Rights chatbot service.In 2021-2022 The Hintalovon Child Rights Foundation carried out a ground-breaking research project, Sexual Exploitation of Boys, as part of ECPAT International’s Global Boys’ Initiative. Aiming to identify the measures that need to be taken in terms of prevention and protection, the project takes an action-based approach to mitigating risks, setting up support services, and re-framing the stigma and taboos of boys’ sexual exploitation in Hungary.
Contact: Szilvia Gyurkó
Address: Budapest, Jurányi u. 1, 1027 Hungary
Email: ecpat@hintalovon.hu
Website: https://hintalovon.hu/en/home/
Year: February 2024
Year: 2024
Year: 2023
No
Age of sexual consent is 14 with a close-in-age exemption for peer relationships among children aged 12 and above but below 18.
ECO Hungary, 2021
Partial
Active and passive extraterritoriality is provided for SEC related crimes without requiring double criminality. Passive extraterritoriality can only lead to criminal proceedings if requested by the Prosecutor General.
Extradition is possible for SEC offences but requires double criminality. Foreign perpetrators with residence in Hungary or Hungarian nationals cannot be extradited.
SEC offences are referred to as extraditable under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) framework within the EU without requiring double criminality if the act is punishable by a maximum period of at least three years of imprisonment in the requesting State.
ECO Hungary, 2021
No
The national legislation does not provide a definition of CSAM which is in line with international standards.
ECO Hungary, 2021
Partial
Labour Law (Act No. I of 2012) requires a certificate of No Criminal Record (it is a so called ‘Moral Certificate’) for certain jobs but there is no such general regulation for jobs related to children. In most of the cases, it is up to the employers whether they need such certificate.
Child Rights Report, 2021
Partial
Hungary has ratified the CRC, the OPSC, the Trafficking Protocol and the ILO Convention No. 182.
Hungary has also ratified the Council of Europe’s Lanzarote and Budapest Conventions.
Hungary has not ratified the OPIC and the UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics
ECO Hungary, 2021
Partial
Hearing and Therapy Centres operate in 5 cities (regional centers). The main goal of these centers is to reducse re-traumatisation of children in particular during the criminal procedure. Professionals working in these centers conduct child hearings with special, trauma-sensitive way. However, in practice, the hearing centres struggle a lot of systematic problems.
ECPAT Country Report 2021, Child Rights Report 2021, 2021
Partial
The main police unit including SEC in its mandate is the Cybercrime Division of the National Investigation Bureau which has competence over online manifestations of SEC and the the Child and Youth Protection Department of the Budapest Police Headquarters, responsible for investigating SEC in the capital city, often with international links, although its jurisdiction does not cover the whole country. Lastly, 22 specialised human trafficking professionals were appointed at the national police headquarters in 2019 to increase the efficiency of investigations.
ECO Hungary, 2021
No
No regulation binding or non-binding establishing SEC protection standards on travel and tourism at all either in law or in soft law.
ECPAT Country Report, 2021
No
There is national SEC case data made public by the Unified Investigation and Prosecution Crime Statistics on some SEC-related crimes such as exploitation of children in prostitution, crimes related to child sexual abuse material and child, early and forced marriage. No information was found on whether this data is clearly disaggregated, made available periodically and whether it contains data on offenders and on compensation sought by child victims.
ECO Hungary, 2021
