Hungary’s parliament has approved amendments to the child protection law adopted in 2021 under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. AFP called the move the first significant step toward lifting restrictions on the LGBTQ community since pro-European Prime Minister Péter Magyar came to power.
The original law prohibited material accessible to children from “depicting” or “promoting” sexual and gender diversity. The revised law aims to protect minors from content that could “seriously impair the child’s physical, intellectual, emotional or moral development.”
“Fundamentally, our goal was to move away from a flawed paradigm, linking child protection in any way to sexual orientation or gender identities, and shift to a framework that is truly about children and protecting children,” said Szilvia Gyurkó, state secretary at the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs.
Orbán’s Fidesz Party voted against the amendments, but Magyar’s ruling Tisza Party has a two-thirds majority in parliament. The amendments passed without opposition support.
Human rights advocates welcomed the amendments but called for a review of other discriminatory provisions in Hungarian law adopted under Orbán.
Orbán’s government gradually restricted LGBTQ rights under the pretext of protecting children. Among its last such measures were amendments to the constitution and the law on public assembly that banned the LGBTQ community from holding public events.
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