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”.
Delphine O, a Frenchspecial envoy for the global Generation Equality initiative, tweeted that Novak’s “so-called ‘pro-family’ values are at odds with what the feminists in the room stand for”.
Equality activist Beirne Roose-Snyder, tweeted that she was “absolutely appalled that Women Deliver misunderstands the anti-gender movement so badly as to platform President Novák. Truly gut-churning normalisation of anti-rights actors.”
Maliha Khan, the president and CEO of Women Deliver, said that she had agreed to platform Novák at the behest of the Rwandan government. “If we want to achieve what we want to achieve, we have to partner with and talk to people who we don’t agree with on many many things,” she said.
In a statement, Women Deliver said it is “in no way aligned with the views of President Novák” and that the opening ceremony was “led by the host nation, and therefore inviting speakers fell under its purview.
“Women Deliver’s stance on promoting gender equality and women’s rights is unambiguous … We believe in the importance of policies that support equal opportunity for all genders and that challenge traditional gender roles.
“The presence of President Novák at the opening ceremony will not change our commitment to these values.”
An estimated 6,000 people are in Kigali for the conference, which ends on Thursday, and thousands more are attending virtually.
