by Sarah Sloan
I’ve been in Copenhagen for a few weeks now, and the thing that strikes me most is that it's a city that makes sense. Everything about it is considered and planned, designed with its citizens' best interest in mind. It seems engineered to keep people healthy and safe and the environment clean. Beautiful and well-kept public parks encourage people to go outside, and a well-run public transportation system makes the whole city easily accessible. Not only is it physically convenient to bike- there are paths and lanes everywhere- but also financially convenient: cars here are taxed at nearly 200% of their value. Grocery stores here simply do not provide bags; you are forced to bring your own.
The longer I’m here, the more I think about what human rights means in developed countries. It’s easy to focus on blatant abuses in war-torn and destabilized countries, but what about the more subtle abuses in Europe or the United States?
In my opinion, Denmark has excelled at upholding some of the rights from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that are often overlooked or deemed less important than others. The Declaration guarantees the right to rest and leisure, the right to an adequate standard of living, and to just and favorable conditions of work. In this vein, Danish law states that no employer can expect anyone to work more than 37 hours a week. Working more certainly happens, but there cannot be a base assumption that it will. The Danes clearly respect life outside of work; in fact, they are required to take 6 weeks vacation. What’s more, fathers get 2 weeks off immediately after their child is born, and mothers can get up to a year off for maternity leave, which they can divide with the father: 6 months and 6 months, 7 and 5, etc. Of course, taxes are extremely high here (sometimes over 60% of one's income) but as a result, the gap between rich and poor is much less obvious here than it is in the United States. I have yet to see a truly rundown part of Copenhagen.
While the Danish system is far from perfect, I can't help thinking that the United States could learn from its example.
