2 NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMAN National Preventive Mechanism ANNUAL REPORT 2017 Foreword The year 2017 was another busy year for the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s prevention work. Thirteen visits were made to places of detention in four sectors. The Ombudsman highlighted a number of risk factors for violations and some matters that gave great cause for concern. However, we also find good practices at a number of the places we visit. In December 2016, we published our first thematic report under the prevention mandate. The report, entitled ‘Women in Prison’, identified several conditions that lead to women serving under poorer conditions than men. There has been a great deal of interest in this topic in Norway in 2017. The Correctional Service has adopted a new strategy for women remanded in custody and serving sentences in the period 2017–2020, with the aim of ensuring that women serve under the same conditions as men. We had the opportunity to discuss this and other topics at the Correctional Service’s conference for heads of units. In November 2017, the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) raised the thematic report’s findings during its examination of Norway in Geneva. In its recommendations, the Committee expressed concern about the prison conditions for women in Norway, and recommended that efforts be stepped up to improve the prison conditions and health services for female inmates. The Norwegian authorities have two years to follow up the recommendations. The report from the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s visit to Norgerhaven Prison in the Netherlands was published in March 2017. Since autumn 2015, the Norwegian authorities have rented the 242 places at Norgerhaven Prison from the Dutch authorities. After the visit, the Ombudsman pointed out that the serving of sentences in the Netherlands constitutes a breach of Norway’s human rights obligations under the UN Convention against Torture. It emerged during the visit that, pursuant to the lease agreement, the Norwegian authorities are not entitled to initiate a police investigation in the event of a suspected violation of the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment in Norgerhaven Prison. The Ombudsman has pointed out that the execution of sentences in another state does not exempt Norway from its responsibility for human rights violations. In March, another visit was also made to the police immigration detention centre at Trandum, with a particular focus on its security section. The report highlighted the security section’s alarming use of isolation as a means of dealing with vulnerable people who have tried to commit suicide or have expressed an intention to do so. Minors have also been placed in this section, including in a security cell. The way in which this section is used may be harmful to health, and dealing with ill and vulnerable people in this manner is problematic. In their follow-up, the police have stated that they have no other means of addressing the needs of this group. Isolation can be harmful to health, particularly the health of persons who are already vulnerable. The use of isolation as a means of dealing with ill and vulnerable people is serious and constitutes a violation of human rights standards. The Ombudsman will follow this up in its ongoing dialogue with central government authorities. After its visit to Trandum in 2015, the Ombudsman pointed out that Trandum was not a suitable place for children. We are therefore satisfied that it in 2017 became clear that children shall no longer be detained at Trandum. To the extent that children should be deprived of their liberty at all, it must take place in a more suitable place that is less prison-like and where they are shielded from airport noise. All deprivation