Denmark

The committee recommends to provide all the support necessary to parents who may be at risk of neglecting their children, with particular emphasis on the situation in Greenland. In Greenland, the rates of sexual abuse and online sexual abuse of children are particularly high. Other than in mainland Denmark, child poverty remains high on Faroe Islands and in Greenland.

Denmark is on a good way and the points listed are by far less bad than in other states. There was hardly any usable material for the fact sheets, which is very good.

The committee poses that safeguards to identify girls who are at a risk for female genital mutilation are insufficient. The Committee also recommends that the State party align its legislation on abortion in the Faroe Islands with that in mainland Denmark, with a view to ensuring equal access of girls to safe and legal abortion.

In addition to that, 46 per cent of women in Denmark have experienced some form of physical, sexual or psychological violence before the age of 15. Therefore, the Committee recommends to introduce mandatory elements at all levels of the school curriculum on the unacceptability of violence against women and girls.

Forced treatment and the use of restraint by staff in institutions is legal. Education is insufficiently inclusive; schools and other public facilities are not always fully accessible and the proportions of children with disabilities in primary school who take their final exams and those attending upper secondary education are significantly below the corresponding figures for children without disabilities. Children born deaf with cochlea implants are prevented from learning and communicating in sign language.

The Committee recommends that the State party allocate adequate resources to ensure that all areas of Greenland have sufficient and healthy food reserves and to provide adequate benefits to low-income families.

The Committee recommends to ensure that access to psychological assistance is not dependent on a family’s economic mean.

While noting with appreciation that the proportion of children in conflict with the law has reduced, and welcoming the efforts made by the State party to prevent juvenile delinquency, including the initiatives aimed at strengthening youth resilience against extremism, the Committee nonetheless urges the state party to abolish court-ordered solitary confinement of children. Additionally, the Committee recommends to implement a system focusing on prevention.

While noting with appreciation the many efforts made by the State party to effectively combat child trafficking, the Committee urges the State party to take effective measures to safeguard the rights of children in their territory, especially those of unaccompanied children, to ensure that they do not fall prey to trafficking. In so doing, the Committee urges the State party to continue its efforts to establish adequate and coordinated mechanisms for the identification and protection of child victims of trafficking, reduce bureaucracy and ensure systematic and timely information-sharing among relevant officials, and strengthen the capacity of police officers, border guards, labour inspectors and social workers to identify child victims of trafficking as well as to ensure that child victims are not, under any circumstances, treated as offenders, such as for migration offences, provide child victims with free legal aid and the support of child psychologists and social workers, including through the provision of adequate human, technical and financial resources, and ensure that all child victims have access to child- and gender-sensitive complaints mechanisms and to adequate procedures for seeking, without discrimination, compensation and redress.

The Committee recommends that the State party consider withdrawing the reservation made to article 40 (2) (b) of the Convention. Concluding observations on the fifth periodic reports released on 26 October 2017.