Second Opinion on Sweden

Executive summary

«Minority protection is well developed in Sweden. Over the last years, Sweden has taken a number of valuable measures to advance the protection of national minorities. It has developed its institutional capacity to combat discrimination of Roma and other minorities and important public support is given to Finnish and Sami language radio programmes and to other cultural initiatives. Furthermore, a commitment to improve minority protection was made in the National Action Plan for Human Rights (2006-2009) which includes a reference to the Framework Convention’s monitoring findings. A large majority of the Swedish population considers that persons belonging to ethnic minorities enrich their society and encourage firmer measures to combat discrimination. In addition, Swedish society is increasingly self-critical with regard to xenophobic attitudes.

Despite these and other commendable initiatives, the development of minority policies and legislation has been complicated by such factors as frequent shifts in institutional responsibilities, limited commitment by certain local authorities as well as lack of adequate data on national minorities.

While legislation on the use of minority languages covers the five northern municipalities, valuable proposals to expand the scope of these guarantees have met with delays and need to be followed up as a matter of priority.

In education, the authorities have undertaken commendable reviews of textbooks and launched webbased initiatives devoted to minority languages. However, the availability of minority language teaching remains too limited in the public education system, and there is a need for the authorities to strengthen the pertinent regulations and bolster support for bilingual education.

In northern Sweden, legal uncertainty over land rights continues to negatively impact on the Sami population. While the Sami Parliament has an important place in enhancing participation, its role could be further increased.»

Source

http://www.coe.int

http://www.coe.int

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Second Opinion on Sweden