Ásmundur Einar Daðason

Ásmundur Einar Daðason
Minister of Social Affairs and Children
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 November 2017
Prime Minister	Katrín Jakobsdóttir
Preceded by	Þorsteinn Víglundsson
Personal details
Born	(1982-10-29) 29 October 1982 (age 38) Reykjavík, Iceland
Political party	Progressive
Spouse(s)	Sunna Birna Helgadóttir
Alma mater	Agricultural University of Iceland

Ásmundur Einar Daðason (born 29 October 1982) is an Icelandic politician. He was a member of the Althing for the Northwest Constituency from 2009 to 2016 – first for the Left-Green Movement (VG), later for the centrist Progressive Party.^[1] He returned to the Althing in 2017. He has also been the leader of the organisation Heimssýn, which gathers Iceland’s EU opponents.^[2] On November 30, 2017, he became Minister of Social Affairs and Equality.^[3]

Career[]

Minister of Social Affairs and Children[]

Daðason was appointed Minister of Social Affairs and Children in the Jakobsdottir cabinet following government negotiations following the 2017 election.

After taking office as a minister, Ásmundur Einar declared that his main emphasis as a minister would be services provided for children. That entailed him wanting to make large-scale changes in the systems that provide services to children in Iceland. On the one hand, the changes would make the child the heart, or the center, of the system so the services would come to the child and not the other way around. And on the other hand it would also be necessary to create the possibilities and rules that could make different systems work together in a more prolific manner than has been possible.

On December 31, 2018, he changed the ministerial title to reflect his focus on children's rights and became Minister of Social Affairs and Children, the first minister for children in Iceland.

In 2020, Ásmundur Einar stepped forth in a personal interview with Morgunblaðið (one of the largest newspapers in Iceland) and described his youth and upbringing and the effects that experience had had on his adult life. Based on that experience, Ásmundur Einar emphasised his first hand knowledge of how it feels to be a child in an environment where not everything is up to par and assistance needed. The experience was the main impetus behind putting an emphasis on this matter when Ásmundur Einar was appointed minister and one of the reasons he changed the ministerial title to reflect said emphasis.

In 2020, Ásmundur Einar presented a bill to the Icelandic Parliament on the Integration of Services in the Interest of Children's Prosperity. The bill was the result of cooperation between different parliamentary parties and reflects the view that children's prosperity is something that is above traditional political differences. The bill was accompanied by two other bills, one on the National Agency for Children and Families and the other on the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare for Integrating Services in the Interest of Children's Prosperity. The two are new institutions, founded on the basis of two currently operating institutions, and their role would be to oversee the implementation and activities based on the new law on the Integration of Services in the Interest of Children's Prosperity. More information can be found in a short overview here.

Ásmundur Einar retained an economist to perform an economic impact assessment on the abovementioned law, should it be passed. According to the assessment, the impact of the changes would decrease the number of trauma that children would experience and when they do experience trauma, the changes would assist them in dealing with the trauma. The assessment is largely based on the Adverse Childhood Experiences study. The assessment clearly rates the changes as one of the highest earning projects the government of Iceland could invest in, yielding 11% interests, according to the basis of the assessment. More here.

Ásmundur Einar has planned to present further bills in 2021, changing other laws regarding services for children to support the abovementioned bill. A bill to change the laws regarding child protection is imminent and later there will be bills that will entail changes to various laws to support the abovementioned law, e.g. regarding education systems and health care.

Child Friendly Iceland is a project started in cooperation between the Ministry of Social Affairs and Unicef Iceland. The project aims to make all municipalities in Iceland officially child friendly. Many municipalities have requested participation, 17 municipalities have started their journey (including 55% of children in Iceland) and one (the town of Akureyri) became the first to receive a recognition as a child friendly municipality in 2020. Participation in the project gives access to a Dashboard on Children's Prosperity, that will become a powerful system for municipalities in decision making on welfare and budget. The Dashboard has already received an international award.

Ásmundur Einar presented a bill for a new law on parental leave in Iceland in 2020 that would increase the time of paid parental leave from 9 months to 12 months, equally divided between both parents (if the child in question had two parents). The bill was passed in late 2020. Every child born, adopted or permanently fostered on or after January 1, 2021 will be able to stay home with its parents for 12 months on a paid parental leave. The law is considerate towards single parents, granting them 12 months unshared and financially aids parents who need to travel great distances for medical assistance before/during birth. The wording of the new law is gender neutral.

On 13 January 2021, he announced that he would run for Parliament in Reykjavík North Constituency, after serving four terms for Northwest Constituency.^[4]

References[]

External links[]

• [http://www.althingi.is/cv.php4?nfaerslunr=707 Non auto-biography of Ásmundur Einar Daðason on the parliament Reflist}}

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