Two weeks before the fourth Demographic Summit in Budapest, an allegedly abusive man murdered his ex-wife, his young son and his former mother-in-law and then committed suicide, in Dunakeszi, a city near the Hungarian capital. The ex-wife had warned the authorities about her former spouse, but nothing had happened.
This appalling event – like many similar crimes before – could have been prevented, had the victims’ human rights been given priority. Instead, in 2020, the Hungarian government formally rejected ratification of the Istanbul Convention, a treaty to combat violence against women.
The Demographic Summit, an international gathering of ultra-conservatives, took place over two days last week. Organised by the illiberal Hungarian government led by prime minister Viktor Orbán, it supposedly focused on demographic problems with a regional scope, such as decreasing birth rates in central and eastern Europe.
