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Afternoon
8 March 2000



The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this afternoon started its consideration of a report submitted by the Government of Denmark on its efforts to implement the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Introducing his country's report, Tyge Lehmann, Chief Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, said the public debate in his country on the question of how best to integrate refugees and immigrants into Danish society was both very vivid and hot. Denmark was not an immigrant country in the classical sense and it was only in recent decades that the number of refugees and immigrants had reached a level which represented a challenge to long-established norms and customs in Danish society, he said.

Mario Jorge Yutsis, the Committee expert who served as country rapporteur to the report of Denmark, said that professional and linguistic requirements were among the insurmountable obstacles to employment of non-Danish minorities. If the law on the prohibition of differential treatment on the labour market was in place, why was the number of unemployed non-Danes higher than the number of unemployed Danes, he asked.

In addition to Mr. Lehmann, the Danish delegation included Julie Rechnagel, Minister Counsellor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Eva Grambye, First Secretary, Permanent Danish Mission; Lone Retoft, Head of Department, Ministry of Finance; Bente Herbst Bendiksen, Assistant Head of Department, and Helene Urth, Head of Section, Ministry of Interior; Lennart Hem Lindblom, Head of Section, Christina Toftegaard Nielsen, Head of Section, and Soren Skibsted Mogensen, Head of Section, Ministry of Justice; Jette Bjerg Clausen, Deputy Chief Prosecutor, Public Prosecutor's Office; Agnete Andersen, Special Advisor, and Charlotte Lauridsen, Head of Section, Ministry of Labour; and Jakob Moller Lyberth, Head of Department, Greenland Home Rule Government.

Also participating in the discussion were Committee experts Michael Parker Banton, Yuri A. Rechetov, Regis de Gouttes, Brune-Otto Bryde, Ion Diaconu, Peter Nobel and Luis Valencia Rodriguez.

Denmark is among the 155 States parties to the Convention, and as such it has the obligation to present periodic reports to the Committee which enumerate the measures taken by Government officials to put the treaty into effect.

The Committee will continue its consideration of the report of Denmark when its reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 9 March.

Report of Denmark

The fourteenth periodic report of Denmark (document CERD/C/362/Add.1) enumerates the administrative and legislative steps taken by the Government to implement the provisions of the Convention on an article-by-article basis. It says that the law on the prohibition of differential treatment on the labour market, which was enacted in June 1996, prohibits direct and indirect discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, political opinion, sexual orientation or national, social or ethnic origin. The law did not cover discrimination on the basis of citizenship. However, unemployment among foreigners in Denmark was generally relatively higher than among Danish citizens.

The report recalls that average housing conditions for the ethnic minorities comprising immigrants and refugees differ from the average Danish housing conditions. A survey showed that while 67 per cent of Danes in the age group 15-66 years are owner-occupiers living in their own houses or in a condominium, the corresponding percentages for immigrants and refugees were 18 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

Furthermore, the report highlights cases of racist violations which were dealt with by courts. It further lists the different judgements made by the country’s courts inflicting penalties against perpetrators of crimes of racist violations.

Introduction of Danish Report

TYGE LEHMANN, Chief Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, said that the public debate in his country on the question of how best to integrate refugees and immigrants into Danish society was both very vivid and hot. Denmark was not an immigrant country in the classical sense and it was only in recent decades that the number of refugees and immigrants had reached a level which represented a challenge to long-established norms and customs in Danish society.

Mr. Lehmann continued to say that various measures, experiments and ideas had been carried out and were being carried out in order to cope with the integration in a decent and orderly manner. It was not an easy task for sure, but a free public debate was the best assurance of reaching viable results benefiting all members of society, he said.

HELENE URTH (Denmark) said the Government had put a great effort into guaranteeing equality for everybody and protection against discrimination. However, the integration efforts carried out so far were not sufficient. A proportionally very large part of the ethnic minorities who had been in the country for a long period were unemployed. Realizing that situation, the Government had taken steps towards implementing a more goal-directed integration effort towards ethnic minorities.


AGNETE ANDERSEN (Denmark) said the unemployment rate in the country had fallen in recent years which had benefited all groups, including ethnic minorities. However, the gap between the unemployment rates of minority groups and of the Danish population had not been narrowed down. In many cases, ethnic minorities had different and poorer qualifications than ethnic Danes. One of the biggest problems was insufficient knowledge of the Danish language.

LONE RETOFT (Denmark) recalled that the Ministry of Finance had launched a campaign to better integrate foreign residents into the labour market. It was hoped that following the campaign, the employment barriers put against non-Danish groups would be eased.

CHRISTINA TOFTEGAARD NIELSEEN (Denmark) said that the Ministry of Justice had in August 1999 appointed a commission to consider the incorporation of general human rights conventions into Danish laws. She also said that the country's parliament had adopted a law which allowed for legal aid to individuals who lodged and conducted complaints against the State of Denmark before United Nations human rights committees.

JAKOB MOLLER LYBERTH (Denmark), as a representative of Greenland, said that the vision of Greenland Home Rule was to enter into a new partnership with Denmark based on the principle that there should be a harmony between rights and responsibilities. He said that the framework of the future relationship would not be restricted to the constitutional level but also to the level of the principle that there should be an equal representation between rights and responsibilities.

MARIO JORGE YUTSIS, the Committee expert who served as country rapporteur on the report of Denmark, asked the delegation why the integration law had not obtained the expected result? He said that according to the report, the law was not sufficiently effective, particularly towards employment. In addition, although the economy had been growing, it had not narrowed the gap in employment between Danes and non-Danes.

Professional and linguistic requirements were among the insurmountable obstacles to employment of non-Danish minorities, Mr. Yutsis went on to state. If the law on the prohibition of differential treatment on the labour market was in place, why was the number of unemployed non-Danes higher than the number of unemployed Danes?

Mr. Yutsis referred to Danish laws and ministerial directives which required taxi owners and drivers to be Danish nationals. A taxi company also required drivers who spoke 100 per cent Danish and had detailed knowledge of the streets of Copenhagen. In his opinion, such regulations were discriminatory against the employment of non-nationals.

Turning to refugees, Mr. Yutsis said that refugees and immigrants had been demonized for the benefit of some conservative politicians during election campaigns. Those politicians considered the social assistance provided by the Government to be excessive and to the detriment of Danish nationals. Some far right politicians had been advocating that the presence of refugees and foreign cultures, particularly African and Asian, would be tantamount to the dissolution of Danish society.

Mr. Yutsis asked why "Radio Oasen", still run by a neo-Nazi association, had been allowed on the air. That radio station was apparently receiving a subsidy from the Danish Government. He said that the situation was "a tolerance to intolerance".

Other Committee members also raised a number of questions and made a series of remarks on the report of Denmark. The comments of several experts were focused on the situation of refugees and immigrants in the country who in their opinions, had been subjected to acts of discrimination by anti-foreigner associations and individuals. They noted the exclusion of refugees and immigrants from certain fields of employment on the pretext of lacking Danish language proficiency. Many experts said that despite the law providing the rights of non-nationals to equal employment, it was not implemented in practice.

Several experts also said that some municipal leaders had been reluctant to equally treat refugees and immigrants who sought social benefits, including housing and job opportunities. Cases of individual tenants who refused to rent their homes to refugees were also cited by some experts as being acts of discrimination.



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