by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (Worthy News) – Hungary’s child protection system is on the verge of “structural collapse” as state investigators uncovered hunger, life-threatening buildings, severe neglect, and physical and sexual abuse impacting thousands of vulnerable children, according to an internal government report reviewed by Worthy News.

The roughly 220-page assessment paints a devastating picture of serious failures that remained largely hidden from the public under the previous government of then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Investigators described a system struggling with severe staff shortages, overcrowded facilities, inadequate mental-health care, and thousands of children who cannot be placed in appropriate homes.

Government officials said earlier reports showed that senior authorities under Orbán had known about the problems for years but failed to act effectively. Separate inspection reports from 2024 detailing appalling conditions were not publicly released and investigative journalists eventually obtained them through litigation.

Hungary has about 23,000 children and young people in state care, while roughly 130,000 of the country’s more than 1.6 million children are officially considered at risk.

Government data show thousands of child-abuse cases were recorded in state-run child protection institutions during 2024 and 2025, while 2,249 police reports were filed over the two years.

SEXUAL ABUSE AND HUNGER

In Budapest alone, 252 cases of child abuse were registered in 2023 and 2024, including physical and sexual violence.

Elsewhere in Bács-Kiskun County in southern Hungary, a police investigation found that children at a special children’s home had submitted to sexual abuse by other youngsters in exchange for food. Investigators said no food—not even bread, butter, or jam—was available after the central kitchen closed at 6:30 p.m. local time.

In Vas County in western Hungary, inspectors reported an increase in sexual abuse among children compared with the previous year, with the youngest perpetrator just nine years old.

The assessment also describes four siblings living together in a children’s home housing about 30 children. The youngest, just 18 months old, learned to walk with the help of the oldest sibling, aged 12.

Investigators concluded that virtually all the rights of the four children had been violated, illustrating the inability of an overwhelmed system to provide adequate care to some of Hungary’s most vulnerable youngsters.

CHILDREN WITHOUT HOMES

About 2,700 children were either living in inappropriate placements or waiting in dangerous family circumstances because suitable accommodation could not be found, investigators reported.

Some children were placed as far as 500 kilometers (310 miles) from their families, while obtaining specialist accommodation could take as long as a year. Others remained in hospitals for weeks or even months because authorities had nowhere suitable to send them.

Authorities record about 17,000 runaway incidents annually, with roughly 800 children considered long-term runaways from state care.

Institutions often lacked sufficient psychiatric, psychological, and crisis-care capacity to deal with children suffering from severe trauma or behavioral problems, investigators found.

State Secretary Szilvia Gyurkó, responsible for children’s rights and child protection, recalled meeting a young girl who had suffered from scabies for a year and whose head had been shaved. She said the case illustrated what she called “service deserts” in Hungary’s child protection system, where children can carry the consequences of inadequate state care on their own bodies.

GOVERNMENT PROMISES ACTION

Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government has acknowledged the scale of the crisis and announced a 9.5 billion forint emergency program, worth roughly 27 million euros ($32 million), to improve conditions.

Magyar said his government must learn from past mistakes as it attempts to overhaul a system that deteriorated during Orbán’s administration.

Gyurkó has spoken emotionally about what officials encountered while examining the system.

“In recent weeks, I have cried a lot,” she said while discussing conditions uncovered during the investigation.

The government says hundreds of pages of earlier documents show that officials under Orbán already knew about major shortcomings in the system.

ORBÁN-ERA INSPECTIONS

Among those documents were reports from nationwide inspections ordered after Hungary’s 2024 presidential pardon of a deputy director who enabled child sex abuse at an orphanage. Inspectors examined hundreds of residential child-protection institutions and documented abuse, hunger, deteriorating buildings, staff shortages, and other deficiencies.

Yet the detailed inspection reports were only made public after investigative journalists pursued a freedom-of-information lawsuit and won a final appeal in April 2026. The documents were handed over after the change of government in May.

Officially, staff vacancies across the system stood at about 16 percent in some assessments, although professionals interviewed for the new investigation described even more severe shortages.

By July 31, 97 state-run children’s groups had closed, while one reception home designed for 16 children at one point had 48 assigned to it.

Some employees were working around 80 hours of overtime per month as institutions struggled to maintain basic services.

SYSTEM NEAR COLLAPSE

Professionals told investigators that prevention and early intervention had effectively broken down. One said children sometimes entered state care only “when blood is already flowing.”

The government assessment concludes that outright collapse is currently being prevented largely by the dedication and extra work of individual professionals, together with improvised local solutions.

However, the findings come at a politically sensitive moment.

While Magyar’s government is promising emergency intervention in child protection, former Prime Minister Orbán has been attempting to rebuild his defeated Fidesz party.

Addressing senior Fidesz figures as he announced a new political start, Orbán declared: “I am back.”

Yet Hungary’s own investigation suggests the child protection crisis will require far more than political declarations.

Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.