5 November

Mr Chairman,

Distinguished Members of the Committee,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour for me to introduce the fifth periodic report of the Government of Sweden, submitted to the Committee on 30 June 2006, under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

First, let me introduce my colleagues:

Mr. Hans A  Andersson, Director, Ministry for Social Affairs
Ms. Anna Santesson, Deputy Director, Ministry for Employment
Ms. Caroline Stein, Desk Officer, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Ms. Malin Ekman Aldén, Desk Officer, Ministry for Social Affairs
Msr. Hanna Åkesson, Desk Officer, Ministry for Social Affairs
Mr. Anders Wilhelmsson, Desk Officer,  Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality
Ms. Bilge Tekin Befrits, Desk Officer, Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality
Mr. Måns Molander, First secretary, Permanent Mission of Sweden

Mr Chairman,

The  Government of Sweden is fully committed to upholding and respecting its obligations under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Sweden is a party.

Since the submission of the 5th periodic report, elections have been held to the Swedish Parliament, the Riksdag, which resulted in the formation of a new Government that took office in October 2006. Let me underline, however, that the commitment of Sweden to uphold and respect its international human rights obligations remain unchanged. 

For many decades respecting and promoting economic, social and cultural rights has been a cornerstone of Sweden’s domestic welfare policy. The Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has been, and will remain, the framework within which Sweden continues to further this work.

Mr Chairman,

In recent years, most nations have been increasingly influenced by globalisation and by international events and developments. So has Sweden. Swedish membership of the European Union and the right of free movement of persons, services, capital and goods have had a great influence on Sweden through action taken to ensure that our legislation conforms to EU expectations.

Instability, due to armed conflicts and poor living conditions in various parts of the world, has lead to mass migration, which have also had an impact on receiving countries. This has been affecting Sweden to a much larger extent than many other western countries. A striking example of this is that one single community (Södertälje) in Sweden has received more asylum seekers from Iraq than the whole of the United States.

These changes have transformed Sweden from a rather homogenous country, populationwise, to a multi-ethnic society. Today 1 out of 8 Swedes (13,4 per cent in 2007) were born outside Sweden. In 2006 my country had a higher proportion of foreign-born people than, for example, the UK, France or the Netherlands and almost as high a proportion as the United States. Implementing successful integration policies to maintain and develop the welfare state has been  – and will continue to be – a challenge.

Mr Chairman,

With these statements I would like to underline that Sweden is not an isolated island where welfare issues could be dealt with domestically. (If it ever has been). When designing measures and policies aimed at building a good society for people, we have to take into account our international obligations, what other countries are doing and how the world’s economy is developing – as a rather small country, depending to a large extent on trade and export, our state budget and our ability to allocate resources to further the welfare state very much depend on stability in the world’s financial systems, free trade and political stability in the world.

All this, taken together, constitutes the framework within which we have to work when translating our ambitions to improve our welfare system into concrete actions and measures.

The 5th report, that you have before you, introduces the initiatives taken by the previous Government – and the authorities involved – up until September 2006, when the report was submitted to the Committee. More recent initiatives have been presented in the Swedish response to the Committee’s list of issues this summer.

In this introduction I would like to highlight some of these recent initiatives – what prompted them and how we believe they will work - and to also to try to give a brief overview of the current situation regarding economic, social and cultural rights in Sweden, including some of the remaining challenges.

Mr Chairman,

The fight against all forms of discrimination remains one of the key human rights objectives of my Government. On 4 June 2008 the Swedish Riksdag adopted a new Discrimination Act that will enter into force on 1 January 2009.

The new Act will merge the current seven civil law acts against discrimination regarding different areas of society and different grounds of discri¬mination into a single piece of legislation.

The current four Ombudsmen against discrimination on different grounds, including the Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination, will be also merged into a single national authority, called the Ombudsman against Discrimination (the DO). This will ensure more effective and powerful monitoring of compliance with the Act. Over and above the structural benefits, the merger is expected to improve the conditions for dealing with cases of multiple discrimination.

The Act includes protection for the five previously protected grounds of discrimination; ethnic affiliation (which includes racial discrimination), sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief and disability.  It also adds two new grounds; age and gender identity.

The Act also introduces protection in areas of society not previously covered by the legislation. The most important example is the general prohibition against discrimination for employees in the public sector, including, for example, police officers.

Mr Chairman,

In the fifth periodic report we highlighted the new national action plan for human rights which was adopted by the Swedish Riksdag in May 2006.

The national action plan, for the period of 2006-2009, sets out a coherent approach to human rights issues in Sweden. It also contains a number of concrete measures aimed at promoting respect for human rights during the period covered by the plan.

The focus of the action plan is on protection against discrimination. The plan covers the rights of disabled people, the rights of the child, national minorities and the indigenous Sami people, men’s violence against women, including violence in the name of honour, and – last but not least - human trafficking.

The national action plan for human rights also underlines the right to work, to housing, to health and to education. It is intended to increase knowledge and information about human rights, both within the educational system and among the general public.

The Government has established a Delegation to support the long-term task of securing full respect for human rights in Sweden based on the action plan. The Delegation will support government agencies, municipalities and county councils in their work to secure full respect for human rights in their areas of activity. It will also develop and implement strategies to increase information and knowledge about human rights in special target groups in the community.

Mr Chairman,

One of the most important elements of the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is the right to work. One of the key tasks of the current Swedish Government has been to combat exclusion and marginalisation by getting more people into work. Sustainable high employment is a pre-condition for the long-term financing of the public welfare system and for reducing poverty and economic inequality.

According to the EU report “Efficiency and Effectiveness of Social Spending, Achievements and Challenges” published in 2008 poverty is low in Sweden and the risk of poverty is the lowest in the EU – less than 10 per cent. The average risk of poverty in the EU is 15 per cent.

Income is more evenly distributed in Sweden than in any other country in the EU. Despite this more needs to be done.

Since the Government took office in autumn 2006 a number of new reforms have been introduced to further improve the situation in the Swedish labour market. The focus has been on economic incentives to stimulate the general supply of and demand for labour. The most important measures to increase the labour supply have been the in-work tax credit and changes to the unemployment and sickness insurance systems.

‘’New Start Jobs’’ have been introduced for people who have been out of work for a long time – people who have been unemployed, in early retirement, on sickness absence or dependent on social assistance for at least one year will now be able to have the employer’s social security contribution waived for a period equivalent to the time that they have been away from the labour market. Other measures are “Job and Development Guarantees” for long-term unemployed and “Job Guarantees” for young people. 

Between 2006 and 2007 the unemployment rate (age 15-74) decreased by one percentage point to 6.1 per cent and – at the same time – the employment rate increased by one percentage point to 67 per cent. The increase in employment was particularly significant among young people and foreign-born people. However, the labour market situation both of young people and foreign-born people needs to improve in terms of employment and unemployment. This is also true for people with disabilities.

Mr Chairman,

On 10 July 2008 the Government adopted an action plan to combat prostitution and human trafficking. Prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes is a serious threat to social equality, gender equality and enjoyment of human rights. Most of the victims are women and girls but men and boys are also being exploited.

Efforts to combat prostitution and human trafficking must proceed from a legal, social and gender equality perspective and be based on the human rights principle. Sweden’s commitments in the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN serve as a basis for government policy in this sphere.

This action plan focuses specifically on the individual’s need for protection and support and this perspective must be integrated in the work of the public authorities. Special measures are to be taken on behalf of children and young people. A follow up of the Action plan will be carried out in 2010 and then presented to the Riksdag.

The action plan is intended to intensify outreach activities and give greater priority to sheltered housing, treatment centres and other forms of protection and support. Establishing contact with children and young people who are exposed to – or risk being exposed to – sexual exploitation is particularly difficult. Professional groups working with people in prostitution and trafficking victims need more knowledge and training.

In this context I also would like to highlight the action plan to combat men’s violence against women, violence and oppression in the name of honour and violence in same-sex relationships, which was presented by the Swedish Government in November 2007. The plan includes 56 measures, and the Government is allocating a total of approximately EUR 80 million over four years to implement these measures.

An important part of this particular action plan is combating violence and oppression in the name of honour. Specific knowledge and sometimes special routines are needed, for example in police investigations, risk assessments and the work of social services.

Overall, the action plan gives attention to circumstances and situations that make women especially vulnerable to being subjected to violence, for example women with disabilities, women with abuse problems, immigrant women, women belonging to national minorities and elderly women. 

Even if Sweden “has firmly established a strong equal opportunity framework, which has lead to very impressive advances towards the achievement of equal opportunities for women and men in the public sphere”, to quote the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Ms. Yakin Ertürk, who visited Sweden in 2006, Sweden has by no means reached its goals when combating  prostitution and trafficking or violence against women.

Mr Chairman,

The objective of the Swedish disability policy is to achieve a social community based on diversity; a society designed to allow people with disabilities of all ages full participation in the everyday life of the community; and equal opportunities in life for people with disabilities - girls and boys, women and men.

Disability policy covers measures to remove obstacles to full participation in society and actions to combat discrimination and to increase individual support. The measures are cross-sectoral and are included in most other policy areas.

It is no secret that Sweden, like many other countries today, is facing several challenges in welfare provision. Improvements in welfare require fresh thinking to improve quality, a diversity of actors and great choice for the individual. More attention must be paid to the situation on the labour market. The Government is going to give greater priority to work to increase employment for people with disabilities and to identify and remove the obstacles to participation in working life.

Employers have a very large responsibility to employ people with disabilities. A future challenge is that the proportion of employers willing to hire people with disabilities must rise significantly. The Government has therefore commissioned the Swedish Public Employment Service to present a strategy to achieve a higher rate of employers hiring people with disabilities. The strategy will be presented in February 2009.

On 30 March 2007 Sweden signed the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Sweden has also signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention.
 
In October, the Government submitted draft legislation to the Riksdag proposing that Sweden accede to this new UN Convention. The Government also proposes that Sweden accede to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which means that those who consider that their rights under the Convention have been violated will be able to submit a complaint to a monitoring committee.

The new Convention, which entered into force on 3 May 2008, is one of the key human rights conventions but does not, in itself, create any new rights. Instead it aims to eliminate obstacles that prevent people with disabilities from enjoying their human rights. Accession to the Convention and the optional protocol does not require any changes of or any amendments to the existing legislation.

The Delegation for Human Rights in Sweden has been given the task of examining whether current public sector bodies, individually or collectively, fulfil the requirements of the Convention. The Delegation is to present its report by 1 April 2009. Pending the results of the report, any shortcomings will have to be eliminated by the existing bodies, without special instructions.

Mr Chairman,

The welfare and rights of elderly persons are important priorities of the Swedish Government. The demographic changes in Sweden, with an ageing population and fewer people of working age, create new challenges and demands on the welfare system. To meet the needs of the elderly the Government is introducing a series of reforms. In brief, these efforts can be summarised in three perspectives.

- to strengthen the rights of the individual and choice.
- to promote quality and diversity in service provision and
- to improve and secure the quality of the care provided.

Meeting these extended challenges requires multi-strategy solutions.  By introducing new legislation, such as the Free Choice Act, the Government is building a solid foundation, which will be followed by instruments to increase transparency and strengthen the individual rights of the citizens.

A key government initiative in this field is an open national system to measure and compare the quality of provision by local and regional service providers. The system will provide users with relevant information to enable and support their personal choice. It will also have a benchmarking function to promote quality development.

The Government is also carrying out a broad competency study focusing on staff in elderly care. The inquiry will deliver their report in November 2008 and then be followed by relevant initiatives. Investing in staff training will also help to promote and protect the rights of elderly persons in need of services and care.

As of 2006 the Government is spending approximately 2 billion SEK per year to improve the welfare and rights of the elderly. Next year this spending will be further increased, among other things by increasing subsidies and decreasing taxes.
 
Mr Chairman,

The Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Mr Paul Hunt, visited in January 2006.

His general observation was that “Swedes tend to enjoy a standard of living, life expectancy and health status that are among the best in the world. Sweden’s health system attracts considerable resources and is recognised as one the nation’s vital social institutions. To its credit, the Government also attaches a high priority to human rights, such as the right to the highest attainable standard of health, in its international policies”.

In his report Mr. Hunt concludes, despite the progress made, inter alia that mental health is deteriorating in Sweden. Although Sweden has taken several steps to improve the situation, the problem remains – albeit at a stable level in recent years. The cause of this situation is complex and there is no simple solution. Reducing long-term unemployment, investing in parent support and strengthening anti-discrimination measures are necessary steps since mostly young people are affected.

The Swedish Government is also allocating 500 million SEK for 2008 and 900 million SEK (ca 100 million Euro) for subsequent years to develop psychiatric care at different levels of society. A range of other concrete means have also been adopted, focusing especially on children and young people with mental disturbances.

Mr Chairman,

I would like to conclude this broad overview of the recent actions taken in different areas by the Swedish Government by emphasising that building a welfare state based on equal rights for all, whether it concerns economic, social, cultural or other human rights, is a undertaking that will never be completed. It’s an ongoing process where you have to adjust, rethink and rebuild.  That is why the Committee’s views and recommendations on Swedish efforts are particularly valuable, as are the opinions and concerns expressed in the alternative reports to the Committee by the NGOs.

My Government sees these regular reviews – and the constructive dialogue that they entail – as positive ways of dealing with difficult matters, and as a means of discussing and addressing various concerns, in our common endeavour to create an open and inclusive society.

Thank you very much for yo