Mr President,
Allow me to extend the gratitude of Sweden to His Excellency Jonas Gahr Störe, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Norway, and his delegation for taking an active part in our dialogue. We appreciate the strong commitment of the government to handle challenges within the area of Human Rights.
In Sweden, we currently celebrate the 200-year anniversary of the first establishment of an Ombudsman’s office. We welcome that Norway in 1981 took the initiative to establish the world's first Ombudsman for children. Norway is also a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We have seen reports from civil society organizations saying that children in detention in Norway are kept in isolation for extended periods and that alternatives to detention are not pursued sufficiently. We welcome that this was addressed in the presentation today and recommend Norway (1) to take further measures to ensure that the rights of children deprived of their liberty are fully protected, including by way of ensuring that children shall be deprived of their liberty only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.
Secondly, we want to touch upon an issue that also others have raised in the dialogue this morning. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and CERD have indicated that persons with an immigrant background and persons belonging to minorities, such as the Roma, often face discrimination in areas such as employment, housing and education. In that context, Sweden recommends (2) to implement all necessary measures to eliminate discrimination faced by persons belonging to minorities and persons with an immigrant background.
Thank you, Mr President