| Country | Norway |
|---|---|
| Optional protocol | on the involvement of children in armed conflict, on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography |
| Safety | |
| Corporal punishment | Corporal Punishment is prohibited. |
| Overview of the child rights situation | Norway is very aware of its problems and tries to overcome them. All recommendations from the Committee correlate with actions the state already works on. The Country also focuses on antidiscrimination. |
| Situation of intersexual and transsexual children | The Committee is concerned that some transgender children exhibit suicidal tendencies and therefore recommends to investigate the causes of suicidal tendencies, particularly among transgender children and children in migration reception centres, and ensure that measures are developed to prevent such tendencies and that health personnel are adequately trained in that regard. |
| Female genital mutilation and reproductive rights | The Committee recommends to conduct awareness-raising campaigns targeted at children on how to seek help if they fear being sent abroad to be subjected to female genital mutilation or child marriage and how they can attract the attention of border personnel. The committee notes that girls are sometimes represented in an oversexualized and objectifying manner in the media and children who do not conform to gender stereotypes are subjected to discrimination, bullying, intimidation and violence. |
| Discrimination | |
| Racism, children belonging to a minority and indigenous children | The Committee recommends to increase the efforts to implement a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination on the grounds of race, migration status, sexual orientation or gender identity in the school context and expand the scope of that approach to include private schools and by ensuring recurrent training for all school staff members on equality and gender identity and addressing all forms of discrimination. |
| Situation of children with disabilities | The Committee recommends to further increase its efforts to combat violence against and abuse and neglect of children with disabilities and to ensure that all cases of violence, including sexual violence, against children with disabilities, are systematically registered by the authorities. Norway also should ensure, that, in the light of the outcome of the report of 1 April 2018 on inclusive education by the expert group for children and young people who need special adaptation, that inclusive education becomes more inclusive, more adapted to the needs of children with disabilities and obtains better results with higher quality. |
| Situation of asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children | The Committee notes that children with an immigrant background are exposed to discrimination and often face difficulties at school, which teaching staff are insufficiently trained to address. Norway has an ongoing study about the living conditions of Norwegian-born children of immigrant parents. Some children in migration reception centres exhibit suicidal tendencies. The Committee is concerned about children who have disappeared from reception centres and children being sent back to countries where their rights are at high risk of being violated. |
| Education | |
| Free kindergarten | No |
| Free primary and secondary school | Yes |
| Digital possibilities | The Committee is concerned that current plans of action against child sexual abuse and exploitation are not sufficiently focused on the dangers arising to children in the internet. An increase of online child sexual abuse and exploitation, including grooming cases, online child sexual extortion and child pornography is reported, but there is also a trend underreporting the sexual abuse of children, in particular when the victim is a boy. The Committee recommends to continue the efforts to combat cyberbullying and teach children on how they can defend themselves against cyberbullying. |
| Health | |
| physical health | The Committee notes with appreciation the increase in funds for health centres and school health services. The Committee recommends to provide children with an irregular residence status with immediate access to health-care institutions so that they can receive the necessary treatment, independently of considerations regarding their departure date |
| Relation to other countries | |
| mental health | The Committee is concerned that resources allocated to the mental health sector are insufficient, in particular in the light of the reported increase in the number of children in need of such services. The Committee recommends to improve the diagnosis of mental health problems among children and ensure that any initial diagnosis of ADHD is reassessed. |
| Impacts of climate change | The Committee recommends to Norway to increase its focus on alternative energy and establish safeguards to protect children, both in the State party as well as abroad, from the negative impacts of fossil fuels. |
| Situation of juvenile justice | The Committee recommends that the State party discontinue preventive detention for children and, where detention is unavoidable, ensure that children are not detained |
| Specific observations | The Committee recommends to establish all necessary safeguards to ensure that all children born in the State party are entitled to a nationality at birth if otherwise stateless. |
| Additional Background | Concluding observations on the fifth and sixth periodic reports released on 4 July 2018. |
| Last Updated (date) | 15th of February, 2022 |