Expat mother who died in house fire in Budapest had been living in fear for a long time

Expat mother who died in house fire in Budapest had been living in fear for a long time
Participants at the march organized by NANE (Association of Women Together Against Violence) on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in Budapest on 25 November 2018 – Photo: Zoltán Balogh / MTI

On 29 January, a female foreign national died in an apartment in Budapest's V district. The initial investigation of the police did not identify any evidence of foul play in the circumstances of the fire, but Patent Egyesület (Patent Association) issued a statement saying that they had been in contact with the victim for a year and a half, and that the mother of two had filed several complaints against her ex-husband for abusing her, but the police did nothing to follow them up.

On Tuesday morning, the police said that some CCTV footage had turned the investigation around and that the ex-husband had been detained as a suspect and his arrest had been initiated. The BRFK (Budapest Police Headquarters) has also ordered a full fact-finding investigation to clarify why the woman's previous complaint had been dismissed by the V. District Police Station.

The last time Júlia Spronz, a lawyer at Patent Egyesület, exchanged a message with the victim was on 31 December, promising her client that her case would be concluded soon. Spronz has now given details of the case to Telex, and has at the same time highlighted the shortcomings of the Hungarian judicial system.

From the Hungarian Child Protective Services to The Hague

M., a Japanese national in her 40s, first contacted Patent in 2023 to seek legal representation in a dispute over which school their children should attend. She and her husband, also a foreign national, were recently divorced at the time and had agreed to joint custody of their two children and to alternating on a weekly basis. A month later, however, the ex-husband moved to another country, making the arrangement impossible and not paying any child support. Fortunately, the man's parents provided the woman and the two children with an apartment in Budapest.

The younger child was due to start school at the time, but the man refused to agree to both children attending the same school. According to Júlia Spronz, the ex-husband was trying to make things more difficult for his former wife so that she would move with the children to where he was, which would have made it easier for him to maintain communication. Júlia Spronz and her colleagues therefore took the case to the Hungarian Child Protective Services (CPS) to have them designate the same school where the girl was attending for the boy as well.

However, according to Patent's lawyer, this was not when the problems started, as there were several precedents to the 2023 case. In 2020, at the time of Covid, the then still-married couple had agreed that she would travel home to Japan with the children, but at the last minute the husband prevented this and kept the boy with him, leaving the mother to travel only with their daughter. The man then initiated proceedings against her in The Hague, claiming that she had unlawfully taken the other child with her. In the meantime, the man was communicating to those around him and to the boy as well that his mother had simply left him. Júlia Spronz says this is a fairly familiar scenario: according to the Hague Mothers group, which is part of the international women's rights organisation FiLiA, 75% of Hague proceedings are brought against mothers, and in a significant percentage of these cases, just like in this case, there is domestic violence involved.

The woman had told her friends and the Patent staff about a previous incident in which he had physically abused her: on one occasion he was strangling her with such force that she feared for her life. However, she did not press charges. “M. had been living in fear for some time and did not want to get involved in a criminal case because she was afraid that her ex-husband would get even more angry. In addition, M. was not familiar with the area or the language, so she was also afraid of the police investigation itself. Instead, she tried to ensure that they divorced as quickly as possible.”

Last year, however, she did go to the police on two separate occasions. Once when he stole her laptop and performed various activities on it, and again when she received a specific death threat from her ex-husband by e-mail. However, the police refused the complaint and took no action.

The last message

The last time Júlia Spronz exchanged chat messages with M. was on 31 December. They spoke about her future prospects. In her last message, Spronz told her to hold on a little longer because her case would soon be over and in 2025 she would finally get what she wanted and would be able to go home.

At this point, M's case had been dragging on with CPS for 9 months: they submitted the request for her to be allowed to move to Japan with the children in March last year. Spronz says this is particularly odd given that the former spouses had reached a mediation agreement over the summer, according to which – although the father did not agree to her moving abroad with the children – they had agreed on a contact arrangement in case this happened. However, in September, CPS appointed a forensic psychologist to interview the children, who scheduled an appointment for the family for 6 March this year. Júlia Spronz finds it incomprehensible that, in a case where the father had moved abroad, had not been looking after his former family and was visiting them solely when it suited him, they found it justified to appoint a forensic psychologist.

What is particularly outrageous is that it takes six months from the date of the appointment until the actual examination takes place.

Domestic violence without physical aggression

According to the lawyer, if one parent is systematically making the life of his or her partner intolerable, the problem of relational violence arises even if there is no actual physical violence. Of course, an argument about choosing a school or moving house does not in itself make someone abusive. Violence, explains Spronz, occurs when there is a hierarchy of power between the parties, which is reflected, among other things, in the fact that in the end, it's always the will of the same party that prevails. The law also allows for restraining orders in cases of verbal and psychological abuse, but this is used only rarely.

According to Patent's lawyer, taking all the circumstances into account, the threat against M. would have been sufficient in itself to warrant an investigation. "Anyone who threatens to commit a criminal offence of violence against another person in order to create fear" is committing a crime of harassment, the lawyer explains, adding that one of the fundamental problems of the system is that the police, the body appointed to protect citizens, does not take the requests for help made by abused women seriously.

"If a woman is sending signals that she is scared for years, she is requesting help and submitting complaints, but the authorities do not act, and then physical violence occurs, this clearly points to the shortcomings of the justice system," the expert says, who reminds that this is also well demonstrated by the case in Aszód, where a father killed his two daughters while they were visiting, even though the mother had previously made numerous reports about his behaviour.

Law enforcement agencies are not protecting the victim effectively

There are hardly any deaths due to domestic violence without a history of abuse or an attempt by the victim or a relative to seek help, says Spronz. "We have also observed this in the cases we are dealing with: women are at the bottom of the list of priorities for the police, especially if the person they are accusing is their partner or former partner. Even if they are willing to deal with these cases, they are typically swept under the carpet first and only brought up later – but in many cases there is little more to be done by that time.

In Hungary, it is currently entirely up to the abuser to decide whether or not to kill his or her partner, because the law enforcement authorities are not preventing this."

In this respect, foreigners living here are even more at a disadvantage. Spronz's experience is that the police and the courts are even less likely to engage with victims who do not speak Hungarian, because they are not prepared to communicate in English. "Both times when M. filed a complaint, she was accompanied to the police station by a friend who translated for her. But one of our American clients was unable to get a restraining order because they weren't willing to communicate with her in English", Spronz adds.

Women's rights organisations have been campaigning for years for a more effective use of restraining orders, which have been used successfully in many countries around the world. Júlia Spronz says that restraining orders have been proven to have a deterrent effect. However, abusers with a history of serious violence against a person or an extreme sense of entitlement, will not be deterred from violence by a court decision. Such individuals would need to be subject to more severe measures of restraint, arrest or even criminal supervision.

A woman dies every week in Hungary as a result of domestic violence.

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