Mina Gerhardsen (49) new child representative

The short version

• Mina Gerhardsen is the number one candidate for the position of children’s representative after Inga Bejer-Engh, sources inform VG.
• Gerhardsen is a former politician in the Labor Party and current secretary general of the National Association for Public Health.
• Among other things, she has distinguished herself as a supporter of free school meals and healthy food in schools.
• The children’s ombudsman is employed for a fixed-term position of six years, with no possibility of extension.

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At 12 noon on Friday 3 May, the new children’s ombudsman will be presented after Inga Bejer-Engh, who has already taken up the position of assistant chief in the Police Security Service (PST).

Mina Gerhardsen is set as number one for the job, as far as VG knows.

Formally, she must be appointed by the King in the Cabinet – before she can be publicly presented by Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe (Sp) at a press conference in the government quarter.

Gerhardsen is now secretary general of the National Association for Public Health, but has also previously made a name for himself as a top politician in the Labor Party.

– I can neither confirm nor deny VG’s information, says communications manager Eva Kristin Dahle Rabben at the Children’s Ombudsman.

Until the new children’s ombudsman is in place, Ivar Stokkereit is acting children’s ombudsman.

Broad career

Mina Gerhardsen has been a political adviser and state secretary in the Prime Minister’s office for former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. And she has been state secretary in the Ministry of Culture.

Her most recent jobs were as director of communications at Norad and secretary general of the drug field’s collaborative body Actis – before she became head of the National Association for Public Health.

Mina Gerhardsen is the granddaughter of former “father of the country” Einar Gerhardsen. She is the sister of the director of education in Oslo, Marte Gerhardsen – and she is the daughter of former minister Tove Strand and former Oslo city council leader, the late Rune Gerhardsen.

Mina Gerhardsen is married to former Labor politician Eirik Øwre Thorshaug, who, like his wife, has been both a political adviser and state secretary in the former Labor government.

On Thursday, VG did not succeed in getting a comment from Gerhardsen even about the appointment of a new children’s ombudsman.

Nor will Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe say anything about the appointment until the press conference on Friday.

Among other applicants for the position of children’s ombudsman were former Minister for Children and Families Inga Marte Thorkildsen (47), professor Jon Håkon Schultz (56), agency manager and TV personality Stian Barsnes Simonsen (44), head of BUF agency, Trine Eikrem ( 51) and psychologist specialist and researcher Nadia Ansar (44).

Free school meals

None of these reached Mina Gerhardsen, who, among other things, has distinguished herself in her current job at the National Association for Public Health as an ardent supporter of free school meals.

The association proposed both the introduction of free and healthy school meals, daily physical activity in school, increased subsidies for leisure activities, mobile phone-free schools, increased child benefit and VAT cuts on healthy food – before the consideration of the national budget for 2024.

The children’s ombudsman is employed in a fixed-term position of six years and the position is appointed by the King in Cabinet.

Until 2012, the ombudsman could sit for up to two periods of four years. Today, the official appointment is for six years, with no possibility of extension.

Norway first with children’s ombuds

In 1981, a separate law on children’s representatives was passed in Norway. The world’s first children’s ombudsman was appointed the same year, to be precise

The Children’s Ombudsman Act states that the main tasks of the Children’s Ombudsman are to promote children’s interests in society and monitor the development of children’s upbringing.

In 1998, the law was changed, so that the Ombudsman for Children must also monitor whether Norwegian law and administrative practice correspond to the obligations Norway has assumed by ratifying the so-called Convention on the Rights of the Child – or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.