During the October 22nd meeting of the town council in the Southern Hungarian town of Szarvas, mayor Mihály Babák praised local teachers and mentioned two of his former teachers who practiced corporal punishment, adding: “I think this is necessary for raising a child.”
The mayor is already infamous for his sexist patriarchal views. This February he had to make a public apology to a woman representative of the opposition, because he had asked her to lean closer to the microphone, and then added that he would not put it in his mouth, that is more suitable for a woman. “I am sorry, I was an asshole”, he apologized afterwards.
Unfortunately, many people in Hungary share the mayor’s views on corporal punishment. In a recent campaign against child abuse by Unicef, it transpired that in Hungary 14% of adults still consider corporal punishment a suitable means of disciplining a child, and 38% think that one or two slaps in the face cause no harm to the child.
Szilvia Gyurkó, children’s rights lawyer and leader of Hintalovon Child Rights Foundation, wrote in an earlier article on wmn.hu:
“Violence suffered in childhood – regardless whether it is physical, emotional or verbal abuse – always leaves a mark. Always. Because it crosses the boundaries, it harms the foundational trust and traumatizes. Even if looking back the person thinks of it as a necessary parental intervention and claims that she or he ‘became a righteous person nevertheless’. Child abuse – just like abusing adults or animals – is forbidden by Hungarian law.”
