Some leading delegates at a women’s rights conference in Rwanda have expressed shock at the appearance there of the Hungarian president, an anti-abortionist criticised for an anti-equality stance.
Katalin Novák, an important player in the international “anti-gender movement”, was invited by the Rwandan government to speak at the Women Deliver conference in Kigali this week, where reproductive rights is one of the areas under discussion.
“We were taken aback,” said conference attendee Bruna Martinez, an activist from Brazil and member of Young Feminist Europe. “We don’t understand why a woman like this would be invited.”
Before becoming president in 2022, Novák served as family minister in Viktor Orbán’s government and was key in implementing the government’s pro-natalist policies. She has said Hungarian women “shouldn’t compete with men” or expect to earn the same amount of money.
Novák has also hosted representatives of the Alliance Defending Freedom – a US organisation designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – and has rewarded high-profile anti-abortion activists such as Edit Frivaldszky and Ilona Keresztes.
Novák, former leader of the Political Network for Values, an international organisation that works to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, was on a state visit to Rwanda and Tanzania. To applause, she told the conference’s opening ceremony on Monday: . “I am the first woman president of my country.” She said that increasing the fertility rate is Hungary’s goal for gender equality and expressed hope that her teenage daughter will feel empowered to have “even 10 children if she chooses to”.
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