Report on Norway- 51st CEDAW Session

The World YWCA proudly hosted the Norwegian NGO delegation to lunch at the World YWCA office earlier in the week, it was a great opportunity to discuss key challenges faced by women and girls. Evidently, the Norwegian government had a strong delegation led by Audun Lysbakken, the Minister of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion. The last time Norway reported to CEDAW the government was challenged for the lack of civil society involvement in the shadow report. However, the Norwegian NGO community had a very strong presence at this CEDAW session and worked collaboratively as 30 NGO’s to produce a comprehensive shadow report highlighting the realities for women in Norway.

Audun Lysbakken, the Minister of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion, commissioned FOKUS (Forum for Women and Development in Norway) to co-ordinate the shadow report and also last summer invited NGO’s to go to the United Nations in New York to give oral statements highlighting the key issues for women and short-comings of the government. It was clear that this time around the Norwegian government with great success actively tried to engage civil society to contribute to the shadow report.

Some of the key challenges stated in the shadow report that women and young women face in Norway demonstrated that despite being a developed country and very much referred to as a model of gender equality, Norway still has its challenges and women are by no means considered completely equal within society. Norway has never used the CEDAW protocol, however the government says that this is because within national Norwegian legislation women are protected and therefore any crimes can be resolved within Norwegian law. However, the shadow report articulates that gender discrimination protection is not currently incorporated into the Norwegian Constitution and neither is there training nor information initiatives concerning CEDAW in the public administration or the judicial system. Therefore, CEDAW is not being used as a tool by lawyers and judges. The government responded to this, by stating that they have produced an action plan to provide gender perspective/equality training to public administration persons and those working in the judicial system.

During the NGO consultation with CEDAW committee experts it was stated that a Public Persecutor reportedly said “The sentence of three years for the rape of a sleeping women is too high. A man who does this (rapes a women) is overstepping his mark a bit”. This clearly highlights the embedded acceptance of rape as non-serious crime when senior judicial personnel hold these opinions and this also points to the notion of women deserving to be raped. It was widely reported in Norwegian media that many politicians have been charged with rape and engaged in the buying of sexual services from sex workers (prostitution is criminalised in Norway). There has been a 14% increase in reported rape cases from 2010; however the government has put this down to women now having a better understanding of the legal system and being willing to come forward. In the shadow report the NGO community relate that the authorities and justice system in Norway claim to give high priority to combating gender based violence including rape, however the rights of women facing violence are in practice often hampered. They state this is a strong indication of the existence of pervasive gender-based violence discrimination against women in Norway, with only 10% of rape cases resulting in conviction.

The Norwegian government outlined their Action Plan on Domestic Violence and described how they are working with police to evaluate domestic violence. Furthermore, they have signed the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence and Domestic Violence against Women but have not yet ratified the convention. However, the shadow report states that although progress by the government to tackle domestic violence has been made, many cases of domestic violence have a low investigative priority, meaning that the likelihood of a criminal conviction is needlessly low. Furthermore, the NGO community was greatly concerned with the reduction in the number of shelters (Crisis centres) for women survivors of violence, particularly as 22 shelters now exist for men survivors of violence and only 10 were used in 2011 due to lack of male victims therefore funding that could have been used for women shelters was in fact wasted.

Alarmingly, there has been a stark increase in the number of domestic violence cases against young women. Audun Lysbakken, the Minister of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion, responded to this by saying that more work has to been done with the youth to combat domestic violence and gender stereotypes, which he also put down to commercial media reinforcing gender stereotypes. He was particularly concerned with the prevalence of negative body image attitudes amongst young women and outlined that the government will engage in a dialogue with the commercial media.

Other key challenges facing women and young women in Norway; include female genital mutilation, human trafficking, increased number of femicides, lack of access into the labour market and gender based discrimination in the workplace. The Norwegian government responded to all these issues and set out clear action plans and proposals to implement CEDAW fully into Norwegian legislation and the minds of the nation.