Media

On Thursday 15 August, some 80 volunteers from more than 30 countries are invited to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to celebrate the impact made by the MFA’s and Wikimedia Sweden’s international initiative, WikiGap. The initiative has gained a foothold in more than 60 countries and has so far resulted in 32 000 new or edited articles about women on Wikipedia. These articles have now been viewed more than 100 million times.

Amanda Lind, Minister for Culture and Democracy, with responsibility for sport, talks about her areas of responsibility and her role as minister.

The Riksdag has decided that the current radio and television licence fee, which is paid by all households that have a television, will be replaced by an individual public service fee. The fee will be collected via the tax system. The fees will be administered in a closed system that is handled separately from other funds in the central government budget.

The Government has presented a bill on media support to the Riksdag. The bill proposes introducing a supplementary new media support scheme while preserving the existing press subsidy scheme.

One of the Swedish Government’s gender equality policy sub-goals is that men’s violence against women must stop. With reference to #metoo, the following lists some examples of implemented and forthcoming measures to counteract sexual violence, harassment and assault.

The #metoo movement in Sweden strongly demonstrates that more needs to be done to combat sexual harassment and sexual violence in workplaces and society at large. The Swedish Government requires all employers to take responsibility for a secure work environment. In the area of work environment and discrimination there are already many tools and relevant legislation, but the power and size of the petitions show that there are deficiencies in compliance with the regulations. For this reason, Minister for Employment Ylva Johansson and Minister for Gender Equality Åsa Regnér have met with the labour market and union partners, and several ministers have in recent weeks convened meetings with heads of government agencies and business leaders in order to focus on the responsibility of employers to counteract sexual violence and harassment.

In the Budget Bill for 2018, the Government is increasing the budget for culture by SEK 745 million. This includes SEK 275 million to be invested in libraries and SEK 115 million in freedom of the arts. In addition, further investments will be made on democracy policy and anti-discrimination policy. The Budget Bill for 2018 is based on an agreement between the government parties and the Left Party.

Geneva, 29 June 2017. Check against delivery.

Op-ed by Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy Alice Bah Kuhnke and Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General, Huffington Post 29 June 2017 The safety of journalists is deteriorating across the globe. Journalists and media workers are victims of censorship, pressure, threats, physical abuse, violent attacks or mortal violence. Tackling this challenge successfully calls for political will and intensified cooperation. We call on all governments to join UNESCO in a renewed and stronger commitment to defend freedom of expression.

Stockholm, 17 May 2017. Check against delivery.