The National Council for Children (NCC) is the Danish model for an ombudsman-institution for children. The chairman acts as the ombudsman for children and 6 persons with specific expertise on different aspects of children’s life and welfare form the council and assist the chairman. The chairman and 2 members of the council are appointed by the Minister for Social Affairs and NGOs take part in the process of appointing 4 members. Chairman for the National Council for Children is professor Per Schultz Jørgensen. The term of the chairman and two members will end by the end of year 2000.

The office of the National Council for Children has at the moment a staff of totally 10 persons representing a range of expertises: law, sociology, psychology, education and social work.

Director of the office is Bente Ingvarsen (sociologist).

May 1 2000 the office of the National Council for Children moved to better accommodation situated in the centre of Copenhagen.

The office of the National Council for Children is a national agency given formal status and authority by the Parliament. The council is a politically independent body which can set up its own agenda, take action, give statement and formulate criticism when the Council finds it necessary. The Council has not authority to deal with personal cases of complaint. The Council is asked to give its comments on new bills.

The council keeps the relevant ministers, politicians in the parliament, NGOs, children, professionals and the media informed about its initiatives and statements. Newsletters, annual report, conferences, press releases, web site and directly dialog are some of the tools.

The National Council for Children has followed up on Denmark’s second national report to the Committee for the Rights of the Child. The Council handed in its supplementary report May 2000. The English version of the report is published on the ENOC web site: www.ombudsnet.org

A big challenge is to make municipalities aware of their responsibility to implementing the CRC. The public responsibilities for children’s welfare and education in Denmark are in most areas decentralised. In a pilot-project the council corporates with a few municipalities developing methods of how to develop a local policy for children and young people on the ground of the CRC. The temporary experiences will be communicated in a manual later this year.

Through the latest years several incidents of sexual abuse of children have been disclosed in Denmark attracting massive public attention and worries.

In January 2000 the NCC presented to the Government its proposals to a national strategy to combat child sexual abuse. These proposals have been part of the background material for the work performed by a governmental Inter-Ministerial Working Party in order to introduce a national child protection plan, which was just recently published.

The plan consists of a large number of proposals to a great extent in agreement with the positions of the NCC.

An essential part of the national programme is the establishment of a national scientific Knowledge Centre and a statistic monitoring system containing and receiving information from centralized as well as decentralized judicial and health care institutions, i.e. police, law courts, hospitals, G.P.s and so on.

The NCC now follows the implementation of the national plan very closely.

- are now standard procedure in most police investigations into allegations of sexual abuse. The interviews are used as evidence in court proceedings. In Spring 2000 the protection of children suffered a major setback as a High Court decision stated the right of the alleged abuser to be present in a monitoring room during the interview. He/she may then ask questions to the child via his lawyer. For obvious reasons the NCC and child advocacy agencies have condemned this move. The Minister of Justice is now examining the consequences of the High Court decision.

The initiative from the NCC against bullying gives the issue of responsibility highest priority. The Council has followed up on its manual with information about bullying and examples of good practises. In the fall of 1999 an in-service training day for professionals was given and new materiel for students was presented.

The Council argues for new legislation strengthening the responsibility of the local school authorities establishing an educational environment without bullying.

During the last year the NCC has given high priority to the child in centre of parents’ conflict about custody and access. The NCC focuses its concern on the right of the child to present its viewpoints and of being taken into consideration. The NCC takes actively part in the public debate; the Children’s panel has given its opinion on different questions concerning children’s participation in making decisions important for the child when parents separate; the experiences of individual children and young people will be published later this year in a case-pamphlet. In the middle of the gender fight the NCC will make the voice and experiences of the children and young people visible.

The development of looking at children as an individual person with rights to express its own viewpoints and to be listened to raises many new questions to be discussed. For example: children’s liability and children’s rights to be children.

In social research we too experience a development where children more often directly are asked questions about their lives and experiences.

The NCC invited an inter-professional group of researchers and practicians to a symposium to discuss methodological and ethical matters. The NCC will publish the different contributions in a book later this year.

Since the ratification of the CRC Denmark has tried in different ways to meet its requirements of only letting young people serve in prison as a measure of last resort and separated from adults. However the NCC is of the opinion that Denmark’s efforts in this respect are unacceptable and that innovation and development of relevant measures for delinquent children are required. The NCC is looking into this problem.

Since October 1999 the Council has given the government comments on 15 different bills with impact on the life of specific groups of children or children in general.

The NCC has established a representative cross-national panel of school-classes from 5^th and 6^th grade. 1.300 pupils form the panel. The children fill in questionnaires from the NCC. The NCC co-operates with the Danish University for Education on methodological matters. During the last year the children have answered questions about labelling of computer-games, the environment of the schools, children’s participation when parents separate and about schools being no-smoking areas.

When sufficient the NCC will establish a dialogue-group of children in connection with coming initiatives. E.g. to qualify the NCC-initiative on children in process of parents’ separation, staff members have met with a group of children with experiences of their own.

At the NCC web site there is space for debate for and with children. The Council introduce topics at the debate-forum and children can write their own opinions.

The Council has been very active in the public debate on problems of handling cases of child neglect. The Council is of the opinion that the best interest of the child, continuity and security and respect for close relationships of the child itself to a higher degree should be guidelines for the casework. In spring 2000 the Folketinget (parliament) passed an amendment to the Social Service Act, which to a certain degree meets the criticism of the Council.

The preparatory legal work has revealed a possible conflict through the interpretation of the Ministry of Justice between the Convention on the the Rights of the Child’s principle of the best interests of the child and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights about respect of private and family life. The National Council intends to contribute to the clarification of inconsistency between the two conventions.

The NNC has worked for strengthening of the focus on the best of the child in the process of parent’s separation. In the 1999 the Department of Private Law in the Ministry of Justice has worked out guidelines for the local government office of county authorities’ handling cases of access. The NNC has given substantial comments to the draft of the guidelines. The Council has succeeded in influencing the guidelines in direction of putting more emphasis on the child’s need in the casework of the local authorities.

In October 2000 the Government published a National Protection Plan against Child Sexual Abuse. The plan is to a considerable extent in accordance with the NCC proposal to a national strategy to combat CSA.

As a result of the NCC request a large number of local authorities now check via police records on professionals seeking to work with children. And as a part of the National Plan the Government is now looking into possibilities for a better e.g. prolonged registration of abusers.

In Spring 2000 the Criminal Code was amended in order to prolong the final time before suing offenders. Now time runs 10 years from the 18^th birthday of the victim.

The NNC initiated successful in the spring of 1999 a public debate on the responsibility of the local school authorities fighting bullying among children in schools and establishing educational environment without bullying. The Ministry for Education, the National Association for Teachers and the National Association for Parents entered the debate and to day many schools have developed plans of actions against children’s anti-social behaviour. The minister for education has presented a bill about children’s and young people’s physical and social environment in schools.

On the background of the debate started by the NCC, the national broadcasting company has presented the topic about bullying for children too.

Campaign material in Danish on the law amendment banning physical punishment of children has been translated into English, Bosnian/ Serbian/Croatian, Arabic and Turkish. Translation into Urdu (Pakistan) is in process.

Health personnel, social workers, refugee camp workers and ethnic minority groups are primary purchasers of the material and have shown great demand.

Denmark is in a process of reviewing its strategy for foreign developing aid. As a part of the new strategy Denmark will promote the rights and participation of children and young in the recipient countries. And children and young people being important resources in a country’s process of developing will be one of the guidelines for the future aid. The NCC has played an important role for this change in the strategy.

The NCC often sets the agenda for the public debate on children issues, e.g. bullying and the environment in the Danish primary schools, children’s participation in the legal process of placing custody and access when parents separate, children’s rights as a part of the strategy for Danish foreign developing aid, strengthening the focus on the best interest of the child in cases of maltreatment.

Last edited by Barneombudet March 22, 2004
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