Hungarian children’s homes exposed as inspections uncover hunger, abuse and appalling conditions
A series of inspections ordered by the government in 2024 has revealed serious shortcomings and appalling conditions in Hungarian children’s homes, according to previously concealed inspection reports obtained by Direkt36 through a lawsuit.
As reported by direkt36, the reports on the inspections, which were conducted separately in each county, contain several serious findings. They reveal that many children were forced to live in unacceptable conditions—amid mold, in the dark, and surrounded by furniture that posed a risk of injury. In one county, it was revealed that after cases of abuse came to light, the children were left to cope with their trauma on their own; elsewhere, the investigation highlighted the prevalence of sexual abuse among peers.
Perhaps the most shocking case was reported in Bács-Kiskun County. According to the inspection’s findings, children at one of the institutions there suffered from hunger because they were not given any food after 6:30 p.m. Because of this, some children were even willing to endure sexual abuse from peers in exchange for food.
We asked officials from the former and current administrations what steps they had taken to resolve the problems identified in the reports. Bence Rétvári, the former parliamentary state secretary at the Ministry of the Interior who had previously announced the launch of the audits, did not respond to our inquiry.
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Family, which now oversees this area, stated that following the 2024 audit, “internal investigations concerning children’s homes were conducted at the Ministry of the Interior in 2025 and 2026 as well, and we received and reviewed those reports following the handover between the two ministries.” The ministry added that on August 31, it will publish the report “concluding the first part of the Child Protection Diagnosis we conducted,” which will also include “relevant data from the most recent interim child protection report.”
“The child protection system is suffering because specialized care is practically completely overwhelmed through 2026. New capacity must be created, and the problem of crisis care must be resolved,” the SZCSM stated, adding that “we have drafted a proposal to address these urgent tasks, which is currently undergoing inter-ministerial consultation.”
They withheld the results of the inspections
The reports we obtained were prepared because, shortly after the pardon scandal broke, on February 29, 2024, Péter Csizi, the Deputy State Secretary for Social Affairs at the Ministry of the Interior, instructed all government agencies to conduct unscheduled inspections of children’s homes.
The government announced the inspections with great publicity. Bence Rétvári announced on March 12, 2024, that unscheduled official inspections would take place in March and April at all children’s homes, focusing on the internal investigation of cases of abuse. Rétvári stated at the time that the inspections would cover a total of 530 residential children’s institutions. A press release regarding this was also published on the government’s site called kormány.hu, and news of the inspections spread throughout the media.
However, the government has not disclosed what results these audits yielded. Only one County’s administration —the Nógrád County Office—published its audit report on its website. Direkt36 therefore submitted a freedom of information request to the Ministry of the Interior on September 2, 2025, asking for the audit reports to be released.
Instead, however, the ministry sent only brief summaries, which a court later determined were trite, largely identical across government offices, and contained only generalities. With the assistance of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), Direkt36 filed a lawsuit to obtain the actual reports.
On December 16, 2025, the Budapest-Capital Regional Court ruled in favor of Direkt36 in its first-instance judgment. The court concluded that the reports requested clearly constituted information of public interest. On April 30, 2026, we won the case definitively on appeal at the Budapest-Capital Regional Court of Appeals. We still had to wait months for the reports; they were finally sent on July 31, after the change in government, by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Family, the legal successor to the Ministry of the Interior.
Although the original announcement stated that the audits focused on the internal investigation of cases of abuse, reports indicate that few problems were ultimately found in this area. Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County is an exception; there, in the case of a church-run institution, “it was determined from the available documents that the child abuse case was not investigated properly, in accordance with regulations.” The report does not specify what kind of case this was.
However, the same county’s administration drew attention to a serious problem.
“A notable shortcoming that can be said to be widespread among state owned institutions is that, in almost every case, psychological support for the affected children was lacking, given that there has been a long-standing shortage of professional psychologists,”
— stated the report from Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County. It is not just psychologists who are in short supply: a long-standing and well-known problem in Hungary’s child protection system is high staff turnover and a shortage of professionals; there are also few caregivers. This is also reflected in the reports.
After half past six in the evening, there wasn’t even any bread
A recurring theme in the reports is peer abuse. (Direkt36 published a comprehensive article on this phenomenon in February.) A document from Vas County noted that the youngest perpetrator was only 9 years old. The same report found that the number of sexual assaults among children showed an upward trend compared to the previous year.
“Children’s homes must address this problem; it is important to strengthen the children’s gender identity and for staff at children’s homes to actively participate in helping them learn about sexuality,” the report states.
The reports do not always name the specific children’s homes. Thus, it is also unclear which home in Bács-Kiskun County was the one where starvation led to sexual abuse.
However, the report does contain several details about the events. According to the document, the children at the special children’s home did not receive enough food.In the evenings, they simply had nothing to eat. “Dinner in the central kitchen ends at 6:30 p.m., and after that, no food (bread, butter, jam, etc.) is available to the children,” the report states, noting that these children participate in sports and therefore should be eating more. It states:
“Due to their special care needs, the children in the institution face multiple challenges; their upbringing and character development are partially supplemented by sports activities, which naturally place physical demands on their bodies, and thus their nutritional needs are also greater.”
There have been several instances of sexual abuse among children at this institution, and some of these were directly linked to starvation. The report cites a police investigation that “found that the abused children submitted to their abusers in exchange for food.”
We sent questions regarding the details of the investigation to the Bács-Kiskun County Police Department but had not received a response by the time this article was published.
Mold, dirt, and darkness
The length and level of detail in the reports we received vary. In several cases, the more thorough and extensive reports highlighted serious deficiencies in the physical condition of the homes.
In Bács-Kiskun County, for example, the following was noted about one home: “The wardrobes and beds provided for the children in the living quarters are outdated, of substandard quality, and, given their condition, pose a risk of accidents. The seating sets and armchairs used in the common areas, are tattered and dirty, the hard floor coverings are cracked and pose a safety hazard. The soft floor coverings in the rooms are damaged, have gaps, and pose a safety hazard.”
During an inspection at one of the homes in Budapest, inspectors found large quantities of computer monitors, donated computers, kitchen furniture, and large appliances stored in a warehouse and not in use. When asked about the reason for this, it turned out that “in certain cases, the electrical system would not be able to handle the increased load, so they do not even attempt to put them into use.” On the first floor of a large building at another children’s home, only two of twenty light fixtures were lit; eighteen sockets had no bulbs.
The report from the Budapest Government Office also includes the following excerpt: “The faucets, tiles, and shower trays (built-in) are nearly 50 years old; they are impossible to clean and cannot be kept clean despite the greatest efforts. Limescale has not been removed and has become encrusted.” They add:
“In most places, there is no cleaning staff; the children clean on their own according to a schedule.”
The inspection also revealed deplorable conditions in residential homes in Vas County. “The children cannot use the upstairs bathrooms in any of the apartments because the ceiling leaks when they shower. As a result, 12 children share one bathroom, which has a bathtub; the walls are heavily moldy from the excessive moisture, and the plaster is crumbling,” —states the Vas County report, which also notes that, although these problems have been known for some time, the condition of the four group homes in question “has continued to deteriorate since the previous inspection.”
Update: After our article was published, we received the previously missing reports from Pest and Tolna counties from the ministry. Both reports document problems already known from other sources. The Tolna County report also mentions staff shortages and poor physical conditions, such as worn-out mattresses. However, the report also found shortcomings in the handling of child abuse cases. “Professionals are not maintaining documentation properly. Child abuse reports are filled out inaccurately, and procedures are not followed according to protocol,” the report states. The government office in Tolna County ordered a follow-up inspection of all children’s homes there, which concluded that “while they were able to address deficiencies in material resources and maintenance work, they are still unable to ensure adequate staffing levels.”
The report from Pest County also criticizes the physical and staffing conditions. For example, it notes that at the time of the inspections, the rate of unfilled positions at children’s homes in Pest County was 16.4 percent. As was the case in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County, two facilities here also failed to provide psychological support to abused children. The report states bluntly: “Despite the efforts of dedicated staff and managers working in the field, the ‘critical condition’ of the children’s home buildings, the failure to adequately ensure the mandatory professional staffing levels, and the severe shortage of care facilities” constitute “serious risk factors.”
Deputy Editor
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