He was the audience's favorite, yet the president of the feminist conference attacks the Hungarian president. Written by Mátyás Kohán.
On Monday, July 17, the President of the Republic, Katalin Novák, who was on an official visit to Rwanda, the host of the event, spoke at the opening speech of the world's most prestigious women's rights conference, Women Deliver.
The president opened the event together with Macky Sall of Senegal and Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia, Natalia Kanem, director-general of the UN Population Fund, and Sábáná Basidjs-Rasikh, an Afghan women's rights activist and the founder of the SOLA academy that trains women leaders, at which Mandiner was also present live.
At the round table discussion, Novák spoke about her main goal, so that women no longer have to choose between professional success and motherhood, but instead, if they want, they can fulfill themselves in both.
In addition, in agreement with the Ethiopian president - who, like her, is also the first female president of his country - she spoke about the fact that the fact that a country has a female president does not yet fulfill women's equality.
He urged the participation of girls and women in politics and expressed his regret that from August (with the resignation of Justice Minister Judit Varga) there will be no female members of the Hungarian government, and the proportion of female parliamentarians is below 15 percent. In this regard, he congratulated Rwanda, where more than 60 percent of the representatives are women. In addition, he introduced some Hungarian family policy measures, including the lifelong immunity of women who have four or more children.
Katalin Novák's pro-family position at the conference, which also deals specifically with LGBTQ issues and pro-abortion activism, was an unexpectedly great success at the conference.
Among the participants of the opening discussion, he clearly received the most applause; the audience, which consisted mostly of women under 30, was most enthusiastic about the message that women should not be forced to choose between work and motherhood, but the fact that Novák is the first female president of the Republic of Hungary and the freedom of mothers of four children was also greeted with great applause.
After both his interlocutors and the moderator had a pleasant conversation with the President of the Republic and no one expressed any criticism or objection, the president of Women Deliver, Maliha Khan from Pakistan, unexpectedly issued a statement the following evening. In it, he writes, WD "heard and understands the criticism of the participants regarding the presence of President Novák at the opening ceremony of WD2023", moreover, "I personally welcome this feedback".
Khan added, "President Novak's views on gender equality, inclusion, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (by which pro-abortionists mean the practice and right to kill fetuses - ed.) do not match the views of Women Deliver in any way, so I'm glad there's a scandal."
Khan explains the presence of the president of the republic by saying that the government of Rwanda insisted on it: "the opening ceremony is led by the host country, so the invitation of speakers to the opening is also within their competence". Thus, in exchange for the fact that Rwanda gave visas to all their guests and, being a country that opposes the rainbow lobby, even provided maximum security to LGBTQ activists, "just as Rwanda adapted to us in so many things, we did the same in terms of partnership", and they let the president of the republic speak.
They emphasize that the freedom and inclusion provided by Rwanda "was not provided by any of the countries we have ever worked with", which is why they accepted Novák's invitation, although "we did not agree with the decision to provide him with a platform". However, she defended the decision to the extent that she emphasized: "if we want to achieve our goals as a feminist community, we also have to talk to people with whom we don't always agree."
Although Maliha Khan now claims that she did not agree with Katalin Novák's invitation, she did not quite think so in January. Indeed, Mandiner came into possession of a document dated January 4 inviting the President of the Hungarian Republic to the event, which was jointly signed by Women Deliver and the Rwandan government as co-organizers.
In the joint letter signed by Maliha Khan and Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta, the signatories write that "on behalf of the Rwandan government and Women Deliver, we are forwarding the attached letter of invitation", and we look forward to hosting Her Excellency Katalin Novák in Kigali at the WD2023 conference".
Therefore, Women Deliver has either changed its attitude towards freedom of speech in the meantime, and while it previously supported the pro-family approach to women's rights, it now opposes it. Or he has always opposed it, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who is the target of constant human rights criticism from the West, had to ensure that family and motherhood could be discussed at a women's rights conference in a context other than the termination of fetal life, allowing that maternal rights are also women's rights.
