Geographic Focus
SF is also ready to make it illegal to stay silent if one knows about violence against children – but the extended reporting obligation should apply nationwide, according to the party’s legal spokesperson, Karina Lorentzen.
– It’s worth looking at how we can organize it because I agree with the goal. It’s about getting more people to report the violence. That’s what helps the children, she says.
Betina Kastbjerg, who is the legal spokesperson for the Danish Democrats, also agrees.
– We do not exclude that it can also be extended to other areas, she says.
But she acknowledges that Peter Hummelgaard’s geographical targeting carries a point in itself.
It has been 30 years since it became illegal for parents to hit their children. However, studies show that more than one in five children around the age of 15 is subjected to violence at home.
Former Minister of Justice Søren Pind (V) has described his successor’s proposal in Berlingske as “perhaps the most decisive conscious legal step to tackle crime that we have seen in recent times in Denmark.”
The connection between domestic violence and later crime is indisputable, he believes.
S: Right Focus
In the government, the Moderates are not completely opposed to a stricter reporting obligation, but legal spokesperson Nanna W. Gotfredsen has her reservations:
– We are very willing to engage in a larger conversation about how to ensure that affected children receive help as soon as possible, she says.
But it should be done “with respect for fundamental principles of the rule of law” and with a “clear view that violence against children does not only occur in, for example, vulnerable residential areas,” according to the spokesperson, who emphasizes:
– Whatever we end up with, it must of course apply nationwide.