Who Protects the Children?

Trauma, Safeguarding, and the Failure of Child Protection Systems in Hungary

This article reflects the author’s personal views and opinions. It does not represent the views of any institutions, organisations, or companies the author has been associated with during their professional career.

Almost two months ago, I promised to write about my work in the UK. Instead, I was swept up by the long‑awaited political change that finally took place in Hungary. The journey leading up to the night of 12 April was rocky and deeply emotional. It began two years earlier, with a presidential pardon granted by the then head of state, Katalin Novák.

Author: Judit Rudas

In February 2024, Hungary was rocked by a major political scandal after it emerged that President Katalin Novák had granted a presidential pardon in 2023 to Endre Kónya, a man convicted of helping to cover up the sexual abuse of children at a state‑run children’s home in Bicske. The pardon only became public when investigative journalists revealed the list of people who had received clemency.

The case caused widespread public outrage because Kónya had pressured victims—minors in his care—to withdraw their testimony in a child abuse case. Large protests followed in Budapest and other cities.

As a result, President Novák resigned on 10 February 2024, admitting that she had made a serious mistake. Shortly afterward, Judit Varga, the former justice minister who had legally countersigned the pardon, also stepped down from frontline politics.

The scandal had lasting consequences. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán proposed a constitutional amendment to ban presidential pardons in cases involving crimes against children, which parliament later approved. Politically, the affair badly damaged the ruling party’s credibility and helped trigger a broader opposition movement that reshaped Hungarian politics in the months that followed. For many of us, this was not merely a political event, but a profound moral rupture.

Soon after, new investigations focused on state‑run child protection institutions, particularly the Szőlő Street correctional school in Budapest, where the former director was accused of human trafficking, coercion, and the exploitation of minors.

During public discussion, whistleblowers, journalists, and activists referred to an unidentified and highly influential figure alleged to have demanded access to children. This figure became known as “Zsolti bácsi”.

Then, on 24 April 2026, a victim connected to the mysterious “Zsolti bácsi” allegations stepped into the public eye. It dragged me sharply back to reality. In Hungary, it increasingly felt as though politicians had protected care‑home workers and fellow officials who enabled, supported, or turned a blind eye to a system of child exploitation. Care homes and correctional facilities appeared to provide a steady flow of minors who were groomed, bribed, blackmailed, and threatened into fulfilling the sick desires of adults who were supposed to protect them.

A nation is traumatised.

I have worked with vulnerable people for over ten years. I first worked with refugees in Germany during the Syrian refugee wave. I now work in the UK with young people who have severe SEMH (Social, Emotional and Mental Health) needs, ASC (Autistic Spectrum Condition), and PDA (Pervasive Demand Avoidance)—often with behaviours that mainstream schools are unable to accommodate.

These young people struggle not only because of their complex needs, but also because many carry significant developmental and childhood trauma. Many are in the care system, living in residential homes or foster care, or in families on the margins of society. Some already have police records, and at times we have to involve the police. All of them are vulnerable, with very low self‑esteem and profound gaps in their academic foundations.

As I often say: we spend six hours a day trying to counterbalance the deeply damaging actions of other adults. We try very hard.

Every day starts with a morning briefing, where we share all information that might affect pupils that day—visits, absences, meetings, changes in routine.

The young people arrive by taxi. Some travel over an hour each way. Using taxis rather than school buses for pupils with additional needs is standard practice here, particularly in rural South Wales. Transport and tuition are paid for by the local authority; it is their legal responsibility to provide every child with an appropriate educational setting up to the age of 18. We are a primary‑secondary setting, meaning we would normally release pupils after Year 11, but we sometimes keep them post‑16 as well. In many cases, the stress of transitioning to a new setting simply isn’t worth the risk.

As the saying goes: pick your battles.

The school is fully fenced. Every member of staff carries keys for every padlock, gate, classroom, and office. Everything is kept locked. We communicate via radios. Most pupils have a designated LSA (Learning Support Assistant) who acts as their shadow, their trusted anchor, and the teacher’s right hand.

There are no harsh words and no abuse of power. Trust is precious and very, very hard‑earned. Transparency with young people is non‑negotiable. In return, we expect socially acceptable behaviour and adherence to basic safeguarding rules.

Staff have to follow strict procedures. Safeguarding training is refreshed annually. Every accident and incident is recorded—whether it’s a serious disclosure or something as small as a splinter from climbing a tree. All wellbeing concerns and disclosures are discussed in daily debriefs.

There is no punishment‑based discipline system, only structured rewards. Pupil voice matters. Staff actively adapt to individual needs—anything that helps build trusting, safe, and positive relationships.

It is second nature to us to look out for warning signs, to communicate assertively, and to teach young people how to trust, whom to trust, and which strategies to use when they feel overwhelmed or unsafe. 

Not one of us would raise our voice—let alone our hands. We are the adults. We are responsible for our young people. We are accountable. And there are serious consequences if we snap or fail in our safeguarding duty. There is no such thing as a bad day; our buttons can be pushed a thousand times. We joke. We smile. We hold it together until the staffroom door closes behind us. Then we can scream, vent, and take a breather. 

And we know our young people. We know them very well. A look, a sneer, a grunt—and we know exactly what it means.

Hungary is shaken because what happened in care homes and child protection facilities is not a story of isolated failure. It is the story of a system that learned how to survive wrongdoing instead of stopping it—a system that absorbed abuse, adapted around it, and quietly continued to function.

What these events expose is not merely a difference between countries, but a difference between systems. In Hungary, safeguarding appeared to exist largely as language—procedural, performative, and increasingly detached from its purpose. In contrast, my daily work in the UK shows what safeguarding looks like when it is treated not as a declaration, but as a discipline. The difference is not cultural, nor theoretical, but operational: whether systems are built to absorb risk and protect authority, or to interrupt harm and protect children. The line between protection and crime is not crossed suddenly—it is eroded quietly, when accountability gives way to discretion, and duty yields to loyalty to power.

The child abuse cases changed a country. They eroded trust at its root. Because once people understood that safeguards had been hollowed out and repurposed—once they saw that protection itself had been weaponised—nothing felt safe or trustworthy anymore. Not institutions. Not authority. Not silence.

For many, the child abuse cases became an eye‑opener—leaving a traumatised nation recognising an Orbán‑era system that functioned less like a safeguard and more like an abuser.

Cover photo credit: Judit Rudas

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