“The system is faceless, deaf and indifferent” – insider speaks out about the horrors of the child protection services

Some of the children ended up on the streets. Some suffered sexual exploitation. And it never did end. Abuse continues to plague the Hungarian child protection services, where professionals are silenced and minors are often harmed more than they are protected.

An educator, referred to from here as “Kata”, saw the way things worked. She recalls it all, vividly.

“The staff decided collectively that the girl would not be allowed to return because of her behavior,” said Kata. “She would soon turn eighteen anyways, they’d say. This upset me; my opposition upset them. I thought I’d be able to get around things. I’m still the one there in the evenings – I could still let her in, I thought. And I did let her in. And they told me that I couldn’t even feed her. I did feed her. She came in, we talked. We connected. That’s basically why they fired me.”

Twenty-three thousand possible victims

Kata has worked in several children’s homes and foster homes over the last fifteen years. She has also worked in special education schools, public schools and as a foster care counselor. Currently, she works as an educator at a church-run children’s home.

There is a need for people like Kata.

In Hungary, 23,000 children are raised in specialized care – in children’s homes or foster homes, with foster families or aftercare. One in ten of these children is on the run – they have fled or were sent away from the homes. Sometimes, it’s because they’ve committed a crime – according to the police’s website, these children comprise 90 to 95 percent of missing people.

The children on the run most often return to a relative; others end up on the street.

Those who have no one end up seeking shelter in abandoned buildings and basements.

Many become victims to child trafficking. Vulnerable young girls and boys without families are recruited and they go, thinking that they’re heading towards independence and a brighter future. They never are.

Children in care are targeted for trafficking, prostitution and criminal work because they have no secure and supportive background and bleaker prospects. Villains pray on their sense of helplessness and psychological trauma, much of which is caused or exacerbated by the child protection services themselves.

Don’t waste your time on him

M, a sixteen-year-old who grew up in state care, was six when he and his sibling were removed from their family. At the beginning of specialized care, they were both placed with foster parents. The foster parents returned M to the state – they couldn’t handle the teenager’s behavioral challenges.

M was still a teenager but he’d lost family twice at this point and was now separated from his only sibling.

He was moved to a children’s home in the countryside, where he and the others were frequently abused sexually and physically. M tells me that they couldn’t break him. He ended up with a rough crowd in the home, amongst a group of boys who dealt drugs to make money.

He ran away last summer, and has been living on the streets for a year now. At night, he sleeps in an abandoned cellar in the 13^th district. He doesn’t want trouble.

“M is beyond saving,” his legal guardian said. “Don’t waste your time on him.”

Boys to pimps, girls to prostitutes

M’s guardian lives over 200 kilometers away from the home. The guardian does not attend the mandatory weekly meetings. They haven’t seen M in over half a year. M told me that he had been sent away from the home.

It’s not a rare occurrence – homes often give up on teenage boys who struggle with integration and behavioral challenges. It’s a cycle – M disappears, the police find him every two to three months, return him to the home, and days later, M is back on the streets. He is currently on the police’s list of missing persons – again.

“There are exceptions, but generally, even a bad mother is better for a child than no mother at all,” said Kata. “But authorities don’t help parents become capable of fulfilling their duties. They remove the child from the family as a sort of false solution. The children who grow up without parents often give up on life – if I’m not important to anyone, it’s difficult to believe you’re valuable at all.”

Schools often treat these children with contempt. By the time they reach 16, no one wants to deal with them anymore.

“Some of the kids do study hard and know this is important and they don’t drop out,” notes Kata, “but even then, I’ve seen a well-performing girl start dating a boy and end up dropping out as a result.”

A school’s ability to retain its students is only one of the factors that play a role. Girls who are raised in care are targeted by groups who know where they live, stalk them and coerce them into prostitution.

“The men who approach these girls are often themselves in poor conditions,” says Kata.

“These relationships start out as partnerships, as love. The man will gradually extort the girl to sell her body.”

You have to do this, they say. It’s no big thing. It’s such a small sacrifice for our bigger plans, for our future. This will earn us money, and we’ll start a new life. We’ll be happy, then.

“The man offers the girls a vision of the future; an escape from the home, a family, love and safety,” says Kata. “But the new life never does come.”

Decades pass, same story

When I first met M, he was sitting on a mattress in the Boráros Square underpass. It was past 10 p.m. when I approached. He told me about his biological parents and his stepmother, his former foster parents and the home he would have been in if he weren’t in the underpass, the home he does not want to return to under any circumstances. He’d rather sleep on the streets.

All he had was the polyfoam mattress. He told me about his parents’ criminal backgrounds and the psych sessions – a story he’d told over and over to psychologists, foster parents, caregivers, counsellors. He was smart and articulate, honest. He was perceptive and responsive. He already knew what questions would come; he anticipated the sympathy.

“The children in residential homes have usually been through two or three foster families,” explains Kata. “They are removed from their families at a young age and they develop behavioral challenges as teenagers, which is when the foster parents return them to residential homes.”

“I rarely see young children in homes,” she continues. “Under the age of 12, they have to be placed with families. By the time they’re older and end up in homes, they’ve experienced enough rejection to rob them of any trust in the world and people. The trauma is immense.”

“Boys involved in love bombing are at the very bottom of a system,” she explains. “I once met a Hungarian girl abroad who had come out of a home and set off for a new life with her ‘boyfriend’. She couldn’t recognize the exploitation. She still believed in the illusion of a better life. I don’t know when or if she’ll ever see the truth. I tried to bring her home, but she wouldn’t come. And, in my experience – this cannot be generalized – the police do not protect these girls.”

Out of control

The Hungarian child protection system operates with shamefully meager financial support. Kata’s salary is 300,000 forints – 70 percent of this goes to rent. State institution facilities are inadequate, as are the meals given to the children.

Kata knows several state institutions where the refrigerators are locked, and the children receive small portions. The shortage in professionals means caregivers are transferred from institution to institution frequently. Child supervisors have vocational training, but they often have to work in caregiver roles without the necessary qualifications or competencies. Caregivers often work twelve-hour shifts.

An institution with a child psychologist is considered lucky – psychiatrists are almost a pipe dream. The caregivers work as teachers, therapists, supervisors, administrators, accountants. They maintain contact with the guardians.

The psychologist at Kata’s institution works at multiple other institutions at the same time. Best case scenario – she meets with a child once a week. A deeper connection is nigh impossible.

Over her 15 years, Kata has never received supervision, nor has she seen any mental health support.

“The child will be speaking about their emotions, the trauma, and you simply cannot find an ounce of control,” she says. “You can’t call in the psychologist from next door because you need them. It’s you – you’re there. The children need attention to work through the trauma. When a caregiver doesn’t lock themselves into their office and leave the kid alone – when they outperform their own competencies and also become the psychologist – that’s an ideal scenario.

“And after a while, the colleagues end up in an abusive relationship with the system,” she notes. “The system is faceless, deaf and indifferent. As a counsellor, I often felt abandoned while asking for help. I couldn’t even send a letter without it being checked. The system expects you to do everything: be a caregiver, supervisor, psychologist without the proper qualifications, educator, while it obstructs you in all your activities. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that there are fewer and fewer caregivers in the homes, and more and more unqualified supervisors and workers.”

During an inspection of the homes, caregivers must sign a contract that says their personal phones and laptops can, at any time, be audited, as can their homes be searched. This has seen many resign, which has exacerbated the shortage.

The Constitutional Protections Office held briefings on these screenings in the homes.

Whether the new legislation will prevent further tragedy in the system is to be seen. Those who have resigned due to the inspection system argue that these reforms aren’t there to protect the child – they’re about total control.

The sexual crimes committed by the likes of Endre Kónya and János Vásárhelyi against minors for decades were not, after all, made possible due to a lack of screenings. They were instead allowed by an environment of fear and indifference. This environment looks to remain, unchanged.

The author has worked in child protection and for his protection – and the protection of his sources – we have ensured his anonymity. She believes that it is not only children growing up in state care who currently feel persecuted, but also those working in the system.