Children’s rights constitute an integral part of human rights; therefore, the first international documents that defined the current content of such rights are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1952. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 20 November 1989 in New York, is an equally significant document on children’s rights. With the promulgation of Act LXIV of 1991, Hungary joined the Convention and thus all the documents listed above.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child specifies the prerequisite that the document has to be dealt with as a unified whole, and no parts or sections may be selected for implementation. Furthermore, the Convention may not be implemented at optional levels; it is to be implemented as a whole, at the economic and cultural level of the given society.
The Hungarian system of children’s rights is undergoing a continuous advancement. Its major elements include:
The Child Protection Act summarises children’s rights, the guarantees of the enforcement of such rights, the forms of the basic and specialised care aimed at the protection of children, the conditions for eligibility, the principles and institutional system of the financing such care, the main regulations on child protection care as an activity of the authorities and the administrative structure of custody. It also specifies the basic rights and obligations of children and parents, and defines the basic system of child protection within which municipal self-governments and institutions, guardian authorities, correctional facilities and probation officers work in order to fulfil their tasks related to the welfare and protection of children. Providers of healthcare (nurses, general practitioners), family assistance services and centres, institutions of public education (education counsellors, kindergartens and schools), the police, prosecution offices, courts and social organisations, churches and foundations also carry out activities in this field.
The implementation of the Child Protection Act is guaranteed by several governmental and ministerial decrees, such as the Government Decree 149/1997 (IV.10) on Guardianship Authorities, Child Protection and Custody Procedure.
The principal objective of the Act on Families is to protect marriage, family, children’s interests, the development and education of the youth, to promote the equality of spouses, to eliminate the negative discrimination of children born out of wedlock and to protect mothers.
This Act incorporates provisions that apply to all children or to a certain group of children (e.g. the regulation of adoption) and provisions that protect the children of divorced couples, and deals with the legal status of children born out of wedlock.
Other acts which are relevant for children's rights are Act LXXXIV of 1998 on the Support of Families, Act LXXXI of 1997 on Social Insurance and Act LXXIX of 1993 on Public Education, as well as Act CLIV of 1997 on Healthcare, which provides for the implementation of the right to healthy growth and development.
Finally, it is to be highlighted that in Hungary since 1908 different rules have been applied for adults and minors who have committed a crime. In substantive criminal law (Act IV of 1978), provisions on juveniles are specified by Chapter VII of the Criminal Code (amended several times). The Chapter contains a separate ministerial decree on the supervision of juveniles by probation officers.
Besides the acts mentioned above, there are several pieces of legislation that serve children’s interest. The existing Civil Code is one of them, inasmuch as it deals with legal capacity – defining capacity, limited capacity, incompetency, minority, custody that affects capacity and the cessation of legal capacity – and with natural rights.
Facts and figures that evidence the necessity of the advancement of children’s rights:
Future tasks for the protection of children’s rights:
The implementation of the acts require a new approach, highly qualified professionals with a high level of self-awareness and an increased recognition of such professionals.
Happy families who live at a standard of living of Western European middle-class families constitute a key factor of a balanced childhood and, then, of the child’s development into an adult who has successfully defined his or her identity. This, of course, is but a starting point of the enforcement of children’s rights.
Taking into consideration the extensive legal regulation detailed above and the existing legal guarantees, it can be concluded that the implementation of children’s rights in Hungary depends on legislation only to a small degree. Fortunately, legislation needs only minor amendments, for example, about the joint accommodation of mothers who deliver their babies in prison and their newborn babies, or the proper treatment of abused children.
The implementation of children’s rights depends mainly on the elaboration of the details of legislation, on raising awareness of the issue, and – to a similar degree – on the economic situation and the stress-bearing capacity of the country, which are factors that actually define a child’s quality of life.