Lawmakers in Hungary passed a bill that allows citizens to report to authorities anonymously on same-sex couples who have been raising children.

The bill was passed earlier this month allowing people to report those who contest the “constitutionally recognized role of marriage and the family” and those who contest children’s rights “to an identity appropriate to their sex at birth”, news agency Bloomberg said in a report.

The eastern European nation’s constitution defines marriage as an institution which is a formation “between one man and one woman” and specifically says “the mother is a woman, the father a man,” according to the report by Bloomberg.

Human right organisations and several NGOs across Europe have lashed out at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government’s stance on the rights of the country’s LGBTQIA+ community.

Orban has barred LGBTQIA+ couples from adopting children and this led to European Union cutting funding for Hungary.

A law was passed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the National Assembly in June 2021, forbade the depiction or promotion of LGBTQIA+-related material to people under 18 years old.

The law included a ban on TV shows and films featuring gay characters, educational programs, and visual material such as rainbow flags and also prohibited gay people from appearing in school educational materials or TV shows meant for under-18s.

Many perceived this law as anti-LGBTQIA+ and claimed that it dehumanized people identifying as LGBTQIA+.

His government has been accused of curbing the rights of the country’s LGBTQ community. The European Commission brought a lawsuit in 2022 before the European Court of Justice against Hungary for the 2021 law and a majority of EU members have joined the lawsuit, taking the commission’s side.

Orban and his right-leaning Fidesz party which won the elections on a wave of populism has said that it will fight the lawsuit and defend “traditional values” to ensure that ‘godless European Union’ does not break the Hungarian society.