A/HRC/45/2 women and children subjected to violence. The policy and the strategy covered honourrelated violence – a collective oppression including harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriages. 650. 15 recommendations concerned measures for the rights of the child. The Government accepted 10 of these recommendations and noted five of them. The Convention on the Rights of the Child became Swedish law on 1 January 2020 and thus, the Convention obtained the status of Swedish law, entailing a clearer obligation on courts and legal practitioners to consider the rights contained in the Convention in deliberations and assessments. 651. 24 recommendations concerned measures for the rights of indigenous peoples and national minorities. The Government accepted 19 of these recommendations and noted five of them. 652. In the 2019 Statement of Government Policy, the Prime Minister set out the Government’s commitment to strengthening the self-determination and influence of the indigenous Sami people. The Government intended to continue and step up its work in the area of policy relating to the Sami people. There have been several important processes currently under way to this end. For example, the development of a consultation procedure, a Nordic Sami Convention, and preservation and revitalisation of the Sami languages. 653. The Swedish Government has strengthened legislation to support all national minorities. One important improvement was the requirement for all municipalities and regions to adopt goals and guidelines for their work on minority policy, of which language and culture should be a key part. A central task for stakeholders working with national minorities was creating conditions that promote the transfer of language and culture from one generation to the next. 2. Views expressed by Member and observer States of the Council on the outcome of the review 654. During the adoption of the outcome of the review of Sweden, 12 delegations made statements.** 655. South Sudan noted with appreciation the efforts made by the Swedish Government to protect and promote human rights, particularly those of persons with disabilities. It welcomed the acceptance of recommendations by Sweden, including those put forward by South Sudan, and the Swedish Government’s commitment to implement them. 656. Sri Lanka welcomed the acceptance of 214 of 300 recommendations received, including two recommendations put forward by Sri Lanka. The delegation took note of the assurances by Sweden to criminalise torture as a specific crime, to improve procedures in order to address statelessness and to accord a broad mandate to the proposed national human rights commission in accordance with the Paris Principles. 657. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela recommended criminalising child abuse. It hoped that the Government would take measures to combat discrimination and crimes motivated by religious, racist and xenophobic prejudice. It expressed concern about excessive use of force and ill-treatment by the security forces and called for independent, rapid and impartial investigations of such complaints. ** The statements of the delegations that were unable to deliver them owing to time constraints which were made available are posted on the extranet of the Human Rights Council, at https://extranet.ohchr.org/sites/hrc/HRCSessions/RegularSessions/45session/Pages/Oralstatements.aspx 107