Hungarian Policy on Sexual crime
Hungary’s criminal policy endeavours to strengthen security, law and order, to reduce crime, mitigate the negative impact of committed offences and to provide protection for families and individuals, ultimately to improve citizens’ sense of security. The new national strategy of social prevention of crime elaborated by the National Crime Prevention Council has been brought into force on 18 October 2013 by Governmental resolution no. 1744/2013 on the National Crime Prevention Strategy (2013-2023). By taking into consideration the current national and international situation in the field of crime prevention, the Strategy sets out the necessary legislative, organisational development, training tasks for the next ten years as well as public awareness programs and the possibilities of promoting societal actions in the area of crime prevention. The priorities, measures, intervention areas specified in the Strategy contribute to the achievement of the above mentioned objectives of criminal policy, as well as to the reduction of vulnerability of children and youth, to the reduction of victimization and the avoidance of repetition of offences.
There were changes of great importance in relevant legislation in the last ten years: there is a possibility for issuing a protection order during the criminal proceedings (since 2006 due to the amendment of the Act XIX of 1998 on Criminal Proceedings); also provisional preventive and preventive protection orders might be issued before or instead of criminal proceedings (under Act LXXII of 2009 on protection order because of violence among relatives); and finally the new Criminal Code of Hungary (Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code which entered into force on the 1st July, 2013) re-regulated the provisions on sexual crime. The most serious sexual crimes are sexual exploitation, sexual violence, sexual abuse and – as for child victims – exploitation of child prostitution and child pornography.
Since 2006 a state-funded Victim Support Service has been operating in Hungary. The Service consists of the Victim Support Unit of Office of Justice and local victim support services at county seats (all over the country). The Service can provide financial, legal, psychological and practical support – not exclusively, but for victims of sexual crimes as well.
Moreover, there are NGOs supporting victims of sexual crimes. ESZTER Foundation (Ambulance – Help for Victims of Sexual Violence) should be mentioned here which provides complex psychological assistance for these victims.
(More information: http://www.bunmegelozes.info
Contact details:
franciska.kovari@bm.gov.hu (European Cooperation Department – Ministry of Interior, Hungary)
zsofia.toth@bm.gov.hu (European Cooperation Department – Ministry of Interior, Hungary)