Actions taken:
| The Swedish Government’s Delegation on International Law and Disarmament lead by the Swedish Foreign Minister has established a working group on the protection of health care in armed conflicts to support the government in its work to improve protection of health-care in line with the HCiD recommendations and the resolutions, as well as the UN SC Res 2286. Swedish Red Cross is an active member of this working group. With regard to the Swedish Government and the UN Security Council 2017-2019, Swedish Red Cross has actively promoted HCiD as a key priority.
We have developed a check list to ensure that counter terrorism legislation and other CT measures taking into account IHL and the humanitarian principles, which also includes concrete measures that parliamentarians can take to improve the protection of health care. We have organized a seminar in the Swedish Parliament “What can Parliamentarians do to help protecting health care?” together with MSF and the Swedish Afghanistan Committee). The Swedish Red Cross is also part of the steering committee for the ICRC study on military operative practice with the aim of improving protection of health care, and presented this study together with the ICRC during the UNSC debate on the protection of the civilian population in May 2018. The Swedish Red Cross has also carried out several activities to spread awareness of this issue. A wrecked ambulance featured at 21 events in Sweden and was visited by over 10 000 people. 30 IHL- and HCID-volunteers and several members of staff have been active during this period. Focus has been on information, dialogue and a social media campaign. Target groups, such as students and medical staff, has be invited to attend “guided tours” of the HCID-ambulance and workshops on HCID. Furthermore, the SRC produced and printed a brochure in Swedish to hand out to interested participants. In May 2016, we organized a communication campaign. We wrote op-eds and were invited to comment the issue in media (radio, TV and newspapers). In addition, the SRC has organised around 40 lectures, to different audiences such as university students of relevant subjects, during the period, attended by approx. 800 people. Most of the lectures was held by volunteers and staff. On some occasions we had guest lectures from colleagues who had been active in the Syrian Arabic Red Crescent and therefore gave a wider perspective of what Health Care in Danger really means. A specialized seminar on Violence Affecting Ambulance Services in Norway and Sweden, was organised together with the Norwegian Red Cross and the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo in October 2016. Swedish Red Cross was a keynote speaker at a conference for health care personnel working as supervisors for students in health care professions, with 900 people in the audience.
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