Graduated from the Faculty of General Medicine of Semmelweis University of Medical Sciences in 1972. In 1978 she qualified as a psychiatrist, and subsequently in 1982 as a psychotherapist. She worked in this profession until 1994. Between 1994 and 2002 she was the head of Partners Hungary Foundation, an organisation operating in 11 countries around the world, teaching the techniques of democracy and the management of social conflicts. While director of that organisation she worked in nearly all of the countries of Central- Eastern Europe as well as in the conflict zones in the Balkans.  

From 1989 she was a senior lecturer at the Social Policy Department of the Institute of Sociology of Eötvös Loránd University. From 1998 to the present she has been lecturer at the Department of Human Rights at the Central European University; from 1999 she also lectured at the British Development School. She is fluent in English and speaks good German.  

In 2002 she became the political secretary of the Ministry of Health, Social and Family Affairs and in June 2004 she was appointed to be the Minister without portfolio of Equal Opportunities. From October 2004 she was the Minister of Youth, Family and Social affairs, and Equal Opportunities.  

She is married with two children.