“Racism not only damages the lives of the people who encounter it, but society as a whole. It deepens mistrust, increases suspicions on all sides, and tears apart the social structure.” -United Nations
The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, observed annually on 21 March, is when, in 1960, the police in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire on a peaceful demonstration against apartheid “pass laws” and killed 69 people. This led the UN General Assembly, in 1979, to designate a week for solidarity with people struggling against racism and racial discrimination.
In Finland, racial equality and non-discrimination, as outlined in the Finnish Non-Discrimination Act, remain largely unfulfilled. Numerous studies by institutions such as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveal that racialized groups continue to face racism, institutional discrimination, exclusion, and systematic dehumanization.
Despite repeated commitments, the actions of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Government fall gravely short in addressing racism and discrimination.
The Government’s action plan to combat racism and promote equality appears largely symbolic, showing no clear evidence of a genuine commitment to tackling racism. The overall climate of mutual respect and understanding in the country has clearly deteriorated and is further exacerbated by policymaking that normalises hate speech and the exclusion of ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities. Divisions within society have deepened, reflected in instances of racial discrimination, hate crimes, and rising hatred on social media — developments that significantly undermine social cohesion.
The Prime Minister’s vow of zero tolerance for racism must be matched by concrete actions, not just words.
Since the Government submitted its equality statement to the Parliament in August 2023, its concrete legislative actions have instead moved toward constructing a system that structurally excludes racialised and migrant communities.
The Government is making Finnish citizenship increasingly difficult for migrants to obtain, shortening the period during which foreign workers who lose their jobs may seek new employment before losing their residence permit, tightening family reunification rules, and making international protection both harder to receive and less accessible for asylum seekers. It has also put public health at risk by limiting access to necessary non-urgent health care for undocumented migrants and reduced integration programmes.
The Government’s draft proposal for implementing the new EU refugee policy demonstrates an intention to apply the framework with the lowest possible standards. Although the new EU legislation provides substantial flexibility for national implementation, the Government has chosen the strictest interpretation, including the removal of the long-established legal safeguard of free legal aid for asylum seekers during the first and most critical stage of the asylum process. Moreover, the Government is disregarding the EU requirement for a sufficiently resourced national human rights monitoring mechanism for asylum seekers by failing to allocate adequate resources to the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman, the authority proposed to perform this oversight.
The Government’s plans to pursue safe third-country agreements with countries outside the EU as well as to establish so-called return hubs represent a highly dangerous policy shift that carries serious risks of human rights violations. Advancing these initiatives further signals a troubling unwillingness to uphold established international human rights obligations.
In addition, the Government’s plans to introduce a two-tier system of minimum unemployment benefits — providing a lower level for migrants and a higher level for others — are discriminatory by design. Plans to restrict some migrants’ access to child home care allowance compounds the inequalities. Together, these plans mark a significant change in Finnish social policy, in which entitlement to social security has traditionally been based on residence rather than country of origin.
OUR COLLECTIVE RECOMMENDATIONS:
As a collective community with extensive expertise, lived experience, and deep understanding of racism in Finland, we have examined the Government’s action plan to combat racism and promote equality. On this basis, we put forward the following recommendations:
Finland’s future must be firmly anti-racist. The Government should reverse its ongoing programmes of austerity targeting racialised and migrant communities and instead introduce legislation that robustly prevents racial discrimination across all sectors and levels of Finnish society. Particular attention is needed in areas such as employment and human trafficking, where enforcement standards must be strengthened to align with those established in gender equality legislation.
The Government’s plans to introduce lower levels of social security benefits for migrants and to restrict their access to certain benefits should be withdrawn. Social policy must be grounded on the principle of non-discrimination.
Hate crimes must be effectively investigated and perpetrators held fully accountable. Additionally, Finnish authorities must invest in identifying and addressing the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in hate-motivated crimes.
The Government should adopt legislative measures to combat racism, hate speech, and hate crimes and to promote equality to address the root causes and contemporary manifestations of racism in line with international human rights law, international standards, and EU legislation. Combatting racist hate speech requires bringing the Finnish Criminal Code into full alignment with the EU Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia. The prohibition of ethnic profiling must be clarified and strengthened in Finnish legislation.
We urge the authorities to intensify their efforts to promote trust, mutual respect, and understanding toward racialised minorities and migrant communities. In this regard, the authorities must refrain from — and promptly and unequivocally condemn — all incidents of hate speech, particularly when expressed by political leaders. They should actively foster intercultural dialogue and a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect among public figures and within media spaces.
In line with the recommendations of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), we call on the Government to take decisive action to counter racist and LGBTI-phobic hate speech, including online and when perpetrated by public figures. The Government should establish a dedicated working group comprising representatives of all relevant authorities, equality bodies, civil society actors, academia, and the media. This group should be mandated to develop a comprehensive programme of concrete, measurable and time-bound actions to prevent and address hate speech.
We further urge the authorities to carry out a comprehensive and independent assessment of the cumulative impact of budget cuts and legislative changes on migrants and asylum seekers. The combined effects of these legislative weakenings on migrants’ rights must be evaluated and any legislative measures that result in unreasonable or inhumane consequences must be repealed. Migrants’ rights, including the fundamental right to seek asylum, should be reinforced, not diminished.
The Government must implement the EU’s new migration policy in a humane and rights-respecting manner, upholding human rights rather than defaulting to the minimum requirements permitted by EU legislation. Free legal aid must remain available to asylum seekers at all stages of the asylum process, and the mandated monitoring mechanism must be allocated sufficient resources to operate effectively. The Government should not establish return hubs nor pursue safe third-country agreements.
The Government should also provide meaningful support to anti-racist civil society actors and ensure their active participation in implementing the action plan to combat racism and promote equality. We call for sustained and predictable funding to guarantee the effective delivery of the Government’s action plan.
Beyond the implementation and funding of the action plan, the Government must ensure dedicated funding and structural support for organisations actively involved in direct anti-racism work in Finland, especially those founded and led by the racialised communities. Such support is essential to strengthen and expand anti-racist efforts across society. At present, most anti-racism work is carried out on a voluntary basis, largely due to the limited availability of funding for organisations, including those led by racialised African communities.
We collectively urge the Government to drastically raise its level of ambition in advancing these reforms through its action plan to combat racism and promote equality, to halt ongoing measures that contribute to racialised social exclusion, and adopt a new direction consistent with the commitments it has repeatedly made at both national and international levels. We further remind the Government that it has a binding obligation to uphold and protect the fundamental and human rights of all individuals.
Signatories to the statement:
African Anti-Racism Society Finland ry
Amnesty International Finnish Section
Forum for Foreign Scholars in Finland ry
Sahwira International ry
Food not bombs Helsinki
Rasmus ry
