All requests for adoption made by unmarried parents which reached Katalin Novák, Hungary’s Minister without portfolio for Family Affairs, have been approved. Hungary’s law on adoption only allows unmarried parents to adopt with the permission of the Minister, and it is unknown how many requests were denied before they reached Novák. The law not only relates to single parents, but unmarried couples, including same-sex couples who are legally not allowed to marry in Hungary.
Anyone in Hungary who wishes to be a parent through adoption without being married must submit a request to Hungary’s Minister of Family Affairs. So far, Novák has allowed the adoption requests of all unmarried parents, of which there have been around 10, she told RTL News. However, there could have been requests which were already denied before they reached the minister.
The act of prioritizing couples over “single parents” was first legalized in 2003. In March of 2021 this law was taken even further, putting potential single parents and unmarried couples at the very back of the line, allowing them to only adopt the children which are not requested by any married couples and only with the permission of the Family Minister.
The Rainbow Families Foundation has requested the government to reinstate the old system of adoption, “in which the fate of a child was not determined by political forces, but by experts.”
The Foundation wrote in February that “the increased restrictions on adoption are the most directly unfair towards children who already have the most difficult fate ahead of them. Same-sex couples are the most open to adopting problematic children.”
In the featured photo: Family minister Katalin Novák. Photo by Lajos Soós/MTI
