3237th Meeting, 118th Session, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

Good afternoon.
Welcome back, colleagues.
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I declare open the 3237th meeting of the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination.
Today and tomorrow morning, the committee will proceed with the consideration of the combined 24th to 26th periodic reports of Finland.
I would like to warmly welcome the delegation of Finland appearing before the committee today in Geneva, led by miss Kirsta Oyonen, Director Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The head of delegation is accompanied by Anna Marie Wong Hamalainen, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Finland to the United Nations in Geneva.
And a delegation of officials to whom I also address my warm welcome.
I look forward to the constructive exchange of views and discussions that we hope to conduct today and without further delay, I will invite the head of delegation, miss Oinonen to introduce the delegation and to deliver her opening statement.
We have about 10 minutes for that, Madam.
The floor is yours.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairperson, distinguished members of the committee.
It is an honor for the delegation of Finland to appear before your committee and to present Finland's combined 24th to 26th periodic reports.
Since our previous dialogue, Finland has continued to strengthen protection against racial discrimination through legislative reforms, policy measures, institutional development, and close cooperation with civil society.
One important institutional development is a new whole of government process for following up international human rights recommendations, judgments and decisions.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Petre Or, the government held comprehensive discussions in 2024 and 2025 and agreed on concrete follow up measures.
Your committee's recommendations will likewise be included in the next annual discussion at the end of the year.
Today, I will focus on six key areas, migration and asylum, Sami rights, racism, and hate speech, equality through education, and our national action plans against racism and human trafficking.
Migration policy has undergone significant reform during the current government's term.
The government program aims to improve migration management, enhance the effectiveness of return procedures, and prevent abuse of the asylum system.
At the same time, it reaffirms Finland's commitment to protecting persons in vulnerable situations, including children, women, and persons belonging to minorities.
All legislative reforms are implemented in full compliance with Finland's international human rights obligations, European Union law and the rule of law.
Individuals fleeing war, persecution, and serious human rights violations continue to have the right to seek asylum in Finland.
Recent legislative amendments have strengthened the coherence and predictability of the migration system.
Requirements for permanent residence permits and citizenship now place greater emphasis on integration, particularly employment and language skills.
Finland considers the protection of migrant workers to be an integral part of its labor migration policy.
We regard labor migration, integration, and the protection of workers' rights as mutually reinforcing objectives.
In recent years, Finland has strengthened the protection of workers' rights and increased efforts to prevent labor exploitation through legislative reforms, comprehensive action plans, enhanced cooperation among authorities, and strengthened support for victims.
Changes to asylum procedures and family reunification requirements have been aligned with EU legislation and Nordic practice.
An important development has been the implementation of the EU Pact on migration and Asylum, which became applicable in June this year.
The objective of the Pact is to ensure timely and high quality decision making, establish a more uniform European asylum system and prevent abuse of the system.
In Finland, the non discrimination ombudsman independently monitors the protection of fundamental rights during screening and border procedures, including respect for the principle of non refoulement, the best interests of the child and access to asylum procedures.
The number of asylum applications has remained on a downward trend since the previous reporting cycle.
Since the beginning of 2021, Finland has received nearly 20,000 applications for international protection.
Moderate yearly levels enable Finland to maintain an asylum system that is both efficient and firmly grounded in respect for fundamental and human rights.
Let me now turn to the rights of the indigenous Sami people.
A major milestone has been the renewal of the Sami Parliament Act, which entered into force in August last year.
The reform responds to concerns raised by international human rights bodies, including your committee.
It strengthens the Sami people's right to self determination, including their right to determine who is eligible to vote in Sami parliament elections, while clarifying electoral procedures and improving legal certainty and the legitimacy of decision making within the Sami Parliament.
The duty of public authorities to negotiate with the SAMI has been strengthened to improve the implementation of the principle of free, prior, and informed consent.
The Revised Climate Act also requires authorities to negotiate with SAM Parliament when preparing climate policies that may affect the SAM.
FMAT has also established the SAM Climate Council, an independent body bringing together traditional SAI knowledge and scientific expertise.
Finland remains firmly committed to combating racism, discrimination, and hate speech.
The program from dialogue to action brings together young people and local decision makers to identify local challenges related to racism and agree on practical solutions.
The Ministry of Justice also works closely with religious communities to improve awareness of legal remedies and access to justice.
Finland has strengthened its response to hate speech and hate crime through a cross sector coordination network involving public authorities and civil society.
The police continue to improve human rights training, the identification, and investigation of hate crimes, and reporting mechanisms.
Finland also supports civil society efforts, including community based monitoring and reporting of hate incidents through EU funded projects and national funding.
Promoting equality through education remains a government priority.
The Development Program for equity and non discrimination in Education for 2025 27 strengthens the capacity of education professionals to promote equality, supports anti discrimination work, and provides practical tools for schools.
Finland is also implementing its national child strategy based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Particular attention is given to promoting the rights of children belonging to minorities and children who have experienced discrimination.
The government also continues its efforts to improve the situation of the Roma population.
Under Finland's national Roma policy, measures focus on equal access to housing, education, and services, while work continues to strengthen equality in housing and improve the evidence base for future policy development.
In 2024, the government adopted its second National Action Plan against racism.
The action plan contains 62 measures coordinated by the Prime Minister's office until 2027.
Its objectives include dismantling structures that produce inequality, strengthening relations between different population groups, improving knowledge about racism, and promoting equality among young people from diverse backgrounds.
Key measures include annual roundtable discussions on equality chaired by the Prime Minister, the annual government discussion on international human rights obligations, as mentioned earlier, a national anti racism campaign, and the establishment of a national anti racism cooperation Network involving public authorities, civil society, and the research community.
Combating human trafficking remains also a government priority.
In May this year, the government adopted a new action plan against human trafficking for 26 27.
This plan contains 43 measures focusing on prevention, victim protection, effective criminal investigations, and stronger cooperation among authorities.
Particular attention is paid to trafficking for sexual exploitation, trafficking involving children and young people, forced marriage, and trafficking linked to organized crime.
Mr.
Chairperson, distinguished members of the committee, Finland recognizes that eliminating racial discrimination requires continuous effort, vigilance, and openness to improvement.
We remain committed to strengthening our legal framework, improving implementation, and engaging in meaningful dialogue with affected communities, civil society, and international human rights mechanisms.
At the same time, these efforts are being pursued in a challenging fiscal context.
Neceessary fiscal consolidation is being undertaken in response to weak growth, high unemployment, rising debt, and increasing expenditure pressures while safeguarding the welfare state and meeting Finland's international human rights obligations.
These requires careful prioritization of new measures, taking into account the effectiveness, sustainability, and feasibility within available resources.
Mr.
Chairperson, distinguished members of the committee, our delegation includes experts from eight ministries and our permanent mission in Geneva, as well as an independent observer from Parliament's Constitutional Law Committee.
We look forward to your questions, observations, and recommendations which are invaluable in guiding our continued work.
Thank you.
I thank you, Your Excellency, for your introductory statement.
I will now give the floor to miss La Laks of the National Human Rights Institution, the Finnish Human Rights Center, to deliver her statement.
Madam, you have 5 minutes and the floor is yours.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished members of the committee and the government delegation.
This statement complements the written observations and suggested recommendations submitted by the NHRI to the committee earlier this year.
Finland, known as a nordic welfare state has an extensive legislative framework, thematic and general human rights action plans, and a variety of policies and authorities aimed at combating racism and discrimination.
At the same time, persistent findings by international and national human rights monitoring bodies demonstrate the continued existence of structural racism and increasing discrimination towards national minorities, indigenous Sami people, migrants, asylum seekers, or any foreign citizens.
There is even an EU infringement procedure pending for failure to implement EU legislation on anti racism.
The challenge with all of these is the implementation.
There is a lack of knowledge, coordination, and actions between the government ministries and authorities.
Human rights recommendations are discussed annually, like mentioned earlier by the government.
Twice so far.
The NHRI has also advocated for a continuation of the discussion in the parliament to spread the knowledge of the recommendations.
Structural racism and discrimination are clearly demonstrated, for example, in the labor market and education.
The complaints received by the non discrimination ombudsman as well as studies also by the government itself show that equally qualified applicants with foreign sounding names or persons with disabilities continue to face disadvantages in recruitment, career advancement, and education.
This obviously needs further attention.
Mr.
Chair, the social climate in Finland has become noticeable harsher.
The NSRI has repeatedly pointed out, as has EE and other monitoring bodies, the increased hate speech even by politicians and public figures against women and sexual minorities, scientists, human rights activists, NGOs, disabled, unemployed, and religious, linguistic, or ethnic minorities.
Fueled by social media trends and actions, racist and hateful speech has become more visible, more accepted, and frequent in public discourse.
As a result, a high percentage of children and young people continue to experience discrimination in schools, public spaces, the media, and online, ranging from everyday stereotyping and exclusion to harassment dismissed only as human.
According to a recent academic study, current educational steering policies do not adequately address the various forms of racism, nor do they provide clear guidance for promoting anti racism in schools.
This has concrete consequences not only to educators, but especially for the mental health and well being of the children and youth as well as their ability to participate equally in society, to feel safe and to trust public institutions.
Mr.
Chair, the change in public climate also fuse mistrust and marginalization affecting national security.
Currently, with wars aggression, climate crisis, Arctic developments, including military mining, forestry, and so on, all affecting Sami, livelihood and culture up north and increasing living costs, security is ever more important as it should be.
Nearly unlimited funding is allocated to security.
Yet severe budgetary cuts are aimed at activities to increase equality, integration, participation, and belonging, as well as solidarity and foreign development aid.
Legislation is also enacted limiting the right to seek asylum, social benefits, or healthcare for migrants and persons seeking asylum.
Persons assumed to be foreign are often falsely claimed by populistic politicians and their followers for threatening the national security, violating the women, committing crimes, and living off the taxpayer's money.
All these adds up with regard to national security or domestic security.
Civil society, which is an integral part of any society unnecessary for participation and advocacy, is slowly being suffocated by limiting their funds, making it harder for individuals to be heard and to influence decision making.
Changes to funding criteria risk weakening organizations that possess the greatest expertise on racism and discrimination.
Limiting their space is shortsighted and unbiased.
Equally, recent developments concerning research funding, together with increasing hostility, intimidation, and HPs directed at researchers, working on these issues risk creating a chilling effect that ultimately weakens Finland's ability to understand and address racism effectively.
Instead of evidence based policy making benefiting from independent research, the decision making does not always appear to be grounded sufficiently on evidence.
Mr.
Chair, distinguished committee members.
In times like these, the ability of human rights bodies such as the NHRI and the ombudsman to participate while staying independent is very vital for promotion of human rights the state has agreed to protect and implement.
The Finnish NHRI is therefore grateful for the opportunity to participate in this process and we hope the committee will stress the importance of implementation and advanced human rights assessment in its recommendations at the end of the session.
I wish you a constructive and fruitful discussion producing strong enforceable recommendations to improve the state of human rights in Finland.
Hopefully, to recently published revised country brand in Finland, making happiness happen, enabling people to lead a good life in a well organized society applies to all despite the ethnicity, religion, language, or citizenship.
Thank you very much.
All.
Thank you, Madam, for your statement.
We will now start our constructive dialogue, which will last approximately 3 hours today.
According to the methodology you have already received, the dialogue will be divided into four segments.
Today, we will focus on two of them, which contain the teams in segment one, legal, institutional and public policy framework and Statistics.
Segment two, hate speech and hate crimes and education.
These themes were identified by the committee in the list of themes and in the methodology shared with the state party.
Um, I will draw the attention of members and the delegation to the need for strict management of time.
We have a timer on the screen to help us, so please be advised.
I would also like to take this opportunity to underline that the committee has a zero tolerance policy toward any acts of intimidation or reprisals, whether directed or individually or collectively against human rights defenders or civil society actors.
The committee values the cooperation and engagement of human rights defenders and a Other civil society organizations.
The safe, free, and unhindered participation is essential to the effective discharge of the committee's mandate.
The committee calls on all states parties to ensure an enabling environment that is conducive to the full participation of civil society, free from interference, harassment or intimidation.
Committee recalls states parties obligation to ensure that no individual who has cooperated or engaged with the committee in the context of reviews under Article 9 of the Convention is subjected to reprisals or other forms of intimidation.
Having said that, and without further delay, I will give the floor to the country rapporteur, Mr.
Mi Balsk, who will deliver his opening remarks and the first set of questions.
Mr.
Balsjiak, you have the floor for 20 minutes.
Thank you very much, chair and good afternoon to the distinguished delegation from Finland.
Welcome.
Together with the country co reporter, doctor Skl Misnat we have prepared and we have studied a lot.
But also today is the time that we would like to engage in dialogue and we have a couple of questions.
You have submitted your report in 2021 in due time, but as it's sometimes the case, very interesting developments happened in Finland after 2021.
So it's five years, it's also a lot to cover.
But having said that, as our chair indicated, this first segment is about legal, institutional and public policy framework as well as statistics.
My remarks and questions will focus on these particular issues.
In fact, a committee took note of the developments and also the state parties legal institutional framework for combating discrimination, including the provisions in your Constitution, the Non Discrimination Act, the work of the nondiscrimination ombudsman and the National nondiscrimination and equality Tribunal, very interesting institutions that I also refer to in a moment.
The committee also took note of the development of national monitoring mechanisms, equality planning, and fundamental human rights indicators, as well as government successive action plans addressing racism and discrimination.
We further took note of state parties efforts to strengthen the implementation of the convention through cooperation between ministries, public authorities, and civil society.
Now, of particular notice are the coordinated annual discussions that we learned about We know that two of such annual discussions were called undertaken, where you collected recommendations from various humans mechanism, international human rights mechanisms.
We also know about your annual roundtable discussions.
But here, let me stop for a very short moment.
As you know, the committee is very interested in what happens with our recommendations after they are delivered.
We have this follow up mechanism, the principal one, but we rarely have an opportunity also to inquire what exactly happens domestically with our recommendations.
Perhaps you could also elaborate on this.
It is very interesting if such discussions are scheduled.
But we would like to learn from you or learn how you exactly coordinate here.
We know it is an initiative where we hope it delivers results.
Tell us if it is so because it's a very interesting example that the recommendations are not just hidden under the desk.
That's what I think they are intended to do to be actively discussed and implemented.
We would look forward to learn about this practice of yours.
Now, having regard to the above, apart from the positive developments, we also have some concerns.
The committee is concerned, there seems to be a gap between the formal legal framework and its implementation.
The 2026 report of the non discrimination ombudsman characterizes racial discrimination as widespread and serious societal problem affecting a number of minority groups.
The committee is also concerned about the absence of some coordinating national mechanism, the one that would coordinate action against racism, hate speech, and hate crimes.
Please tell us if, Maybe there is such a body or domestic institution that plays this coordinating role.
Further, the committee is concerned about whether the implementation of the 2024 government action plan has produced sufficiently measurable results, particularly in addressing structural racism and discrimination affecting minorities.
Now, could the state party explain what concrete and measurable results have been achieved? In the recent say five years throughout its anti racism action plan.
What institution has overall responsibility for coordinating the state parties policies to combat racial discrimination and what human and financial resources have been allocated to this task.
Now, a further, Perhaps you could also elaborate on what measures have been taken to ensure that equality and non discrimination impact assessments are systematically carried out before legislation affecting vulnerable or racialized group is adopted.
Now, as regards statistics, we take note of the state parties recognition of the importance of disaggregated data and of the development of the national discrimination monitoring system.
Fundamental rights barometer and other population surveys.
We also note the state parties use of alternative statistical indicators based on country of birth, origin and nationality and language.
However, the committee remains concerned that Finland does not collect comprehensive official data on ethnic identity, and the absence of such data may make it difficult to identify structural and intersectional discrimination and to evaluate the effectiveness of measures adopted under the convention.
This is actually a concern that has already been expressed nine years ago when the previous concluding observations were adopted.
We know, of course, that Finland bases a Your information concerning a population is not based on census, it's based on registers.
We know that.
Nevertheless, could the delegation indicate whether there might be perhaps some steps or intentions to develop a separate voluntary equality data instrument outside the population register based on self identification, anonymity, or effective anonymization.
You have raised in your report that the EU legislation and notably GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation is a factor here.
Of course, it is.
However, GDPR does not prohibit states from also collect data on ethnic identity based on self identification.
Is there any chance that you could consider developing your policy in this direction? Now, as regards our further questions, what progress has been made since 2021 in developing safeguards and methodologies allowing the state party to collect and publish anonymized disggregated data concerning racial and ethnic discrimination consistently with data protection requirements.
Could the state party provide updated data desegregated where possible by origin, language, country of birth, gender and age, concerning the socioeconomic status of Sami, Roma, people of African descent, Muslims, and other groups particularly affected by racial discrimination? Now, I'd like to also share some remarks and ask some questions on effective remedies and implementation of the Nondiscrimination Act.
The committee takes note of the state parties effort to strengthen the institutional framework for combating discrimination.
I already referred to some of the institutions, nondiscrimination ombudsman, Parliamentary ombudsman, Council of Justice, and the nondiscrimination and equality Tribunal.
The committee also welcomes the amendments to the Nondiscrimination Act in 2022, which empowered the nondiscrimination ombudsman to examine individual complaints of discrimination in employment.
However, the committee is concerned that the number of complaints and judicial cases remains disproportionately low in comparison with survey evidence indicating experiences of discrimination.
The committee is also concerned that different forms of discrimination may be subject to different redress mechanisms, potentially making access to justice difficult for victims.
Let me explain that perhaps a variety of remedies is not a bad thing, of course, if there is a choice when the victims may choose their best possible remedy.
Now the question is, what is this best remedy when someone is alleges discrimination? In fact, it's here that I'd like to also come back for a moment to the National non discrimination and equality Tribunal.
A very interesting institution which operates for the last 11 years, it seems.
It is neither administrative body nor a court.
It is considered quasi judicial.
By the way, well, this committee is also sometimes referred to as quasi judicial body.
But it's quite interesting that you establish a institution where victims in fact may go and have some allegations and claims that the domestic tribunal may address the claims and may interpret the law.
However, if I'm not mistaken, the decisions of that tribunal are not binding.
Nevertheless, it may recommend and it may also recommend payment of compensation to victims.
You please elaborate on this? What is the experience of equality tribunal? I think ten or 11 years already gives a chance to look at these activities in perspective.
In other words, what is the lesson learned as regards this tribunal? Now, of course, I'm asked about this particular institution, but we also are aware that there are other remedies and legal avenues that can be used by victims of discrimination.
However, it would be useful to know what proportion of complaints concerning racial discrimination ultimately result in a finding of discrimination, a sanction, compensation, or another form of remedy.
What measures have been taken to make remedies more accessible to persons facing language barriers, insecure migration status, socio economic disadvantage or lack of confidence in public authorities.
And Also, as regards the institutions that you have created, what is the status of the proposal to merge the non discrimination ombudsman, the ombudsman for equality, and the ombudsman for elderly persons.
Are there such plans and what does your government intend to do in this regard? So, in essence, yes, the statistics would be very much appreciated as regards the complaints to the institutions, and in particular as regards the non discrimination tribunal, what is the, let's say, scale of complaints that are addressed and what is the result of these complaints.
Mr.
Chair, this would conclude this first set of questions.
I think I might have some more in the follow up route.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr.
Balsjt.
I turn towards you, Madam Head of Delegation, Your Ecellcy.
This is the first round of questions you have.
I'll give you the floor to respond to them and you have 25 minutes.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairperson.
I will first reply to the question, what happens to your committee's concluding observations when those are issued? We have quite good established procedure now for the recommendation and concluding observations.
On that day when concluding observations are issued, the government issues in Finland a press release in Finnish, Swedish, and English and your concluding observations, which is still advanced copy, is attached to that press release so that everybody is aware.
After that, it will be translated into Finnish and Swedish and if there are particular recommendations for instance on the indigenous Sami people also into North Sami.
In Finland, we have government network for fundamental and Human Rights, which consists of representatives of all ministries.
They are basically the focal points for fundamental and human rights in Finland in the ministries.
There are also representatives of the independent observers, that is O of the Parliamentary ombudsman and also Chancellor of Justice and the human rights are Center, which is part of our National Human Rights Institution.
This network reviews the concluding observations and our scheduled meeting is already on the 4th of September, so this will be the day when all the ministries will review the concluding observations.
We will discuss what kind of preliminary measures they already are, and this network will keep following up to these concluding observations.
Of course, we are always interested in organizing roundtable discussions and follow up seminars.
Sometimes we have had committee members from Geneva present at these follow up discussions, and that is always very helpful.
Then this government review of the recommendations, decisions, and also judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights.
This is something I'm personally, very excited about because this is first time in independent Finland's history when the government comprehensively reviewed the human rights situation, what the international treaty monitoring bodies and the court are saying to Finland.
We had first review, and this is really the plenary session of the government led by Prime Minister.
All ministers are sitting there.
First review was on third October 24th, and last one was on the 11th, December 25.
And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepares always a compilation of the most recent concluding observations and judgments and also decisions which we get through individual communications procedures.
So it's a compilation of those and also an analysis, and that is presented to the government and then government may ask questions and after that, they discuss follow up measures.
And personally, I consider that this is an excellent example.
I'm really hoping that this could be an institution in Finland so that our next government will also follow this practice.
My colleague from the Prime Minister's office will provide some further information about the concrete measures after these reviews and that will be followed by the Ministry of Justice, please, colleagues.
I will elaborate a little bit about the follow up process of the review.
The government coalition parties meet up and discuss policy outlines to be taken.
It has, like I said, happened twice already.
The Prime Minister's office has published press releases on the review and the policy outlines and um The government also follows up on the implementation of these policy outlines.
In the second review, we informed also on the implementation of the first review.
The progress report was also published in connection of the interim report of the government action plan against racism.
I will point out some key policy outlines that were taken after the review.
First, significant one is for the Prime Minister's office to launch a research project to improve the collection of statistics on equality.
This measure is ongoing at the moment.
We are also developing a roadmap for developing a national evidence based on equality.
This is also ongoing and will be published early next year.
The recommendations on hate speech and hate crimes by international human rights treaty bodies have been mapped, and this mapping has been published in June this year.
Um, from the second review, main policy outlines were as follows, the government will organize a roundtable for Roma representatives focusing on the development of timely, inclusive and meaningful methods and processes for consultation.
The objective of this measure is to promote participation of Roma in decision making processes.
This roundtable will take place next year in February.
As part of the government's action plan against racism, a comparative study will be produced on EU member states approaches to countering hate speech and hate crime.
And finally, the Prime Minister's Office is now commissioning a data report on hate incidents, compilation report which combines data from public authorities, administrative data, research and data collected by CSOs in order to form a national situation picture of the trends and manifestations of hate speech and hate crime in Finland.
To publish this report, we will organize a seminar with stakeholders in spring 2027.
So these are key policy outlines that we are implementing at the moment.
Thank you.
Distinguished members of the committee for your interesting questions.
My name is son Neiman.
I'm from the Ministry of Justice and we continue replying.
Maybe I add just something small regarding what happens with the recommendations from your committee or other Human Rights committee.
We also use them in, for example, when preparing legislation, for example, when the proposal regarding the act under the Sami Parliament, we have opened very very much detail, all the recommendations from various international actors in the proposal and they interested the parliament also very much.
We explained all the details about the recommendations in various hearings.
They have been very relevant.
When it comes to the non discrimination and equality Tribunal, it's been a very interesting quasi judicial body and also since the non discrimination Act is pretty new in Finland and especially the the one from 2015 with a very broad scope of application.
The tribunal has been a very easy actor to contact because it's free of charge.
You don't need to have an assistant and you can contact them and get more instructions on how to proceed with your case.
Have had very interesting decisions that are, by the way, they are legally binding, but they can only give recommendations when it comes to compensation.
But on the facts whether discrimination has occurred or not, they are legally binding and you can appeal their decisions to administrative courts and to the Supreme Administrative court.
In various fields, for example, on disability, they have lots of case law, but also when it comes to ethnic profiling and discrimination and both direct and indirect harassment and so on.
It's been a very interesting Oregon to get new case law on new topics regarding equality.
What we have discussed, we ordered a report or study that was published this year on certain topics related also to the tribunal and on the amendments that were made to the Nondiscrimination Act in 2023.
Regarding the fact that the non discrimination ombudsman was given the authority on the mandate to look into working life cases.
They had very positive experiences because people have found the ombudsman and actually working life is the biggest area in which people contact the ombudsman and especially in recruitment, which was a field that was not really covered or that you couldn't really see in the context of authorities previously.
But when it came to the new mandates for the tribunal to recommend recommendation, the experience was not very positive that only in one case out of five the actor has actually followed up and paid compensation in accordance with the recommendation.
Discussions have been been held on whether the organize should be able to give mandatory decisions regarding compensation.
But here, this quasi judicial status of the tribunal has become a little bit problematic and this is something that we would need to look into in more detail because usually the tribunal have written procedure.
They can oral procedures, but these kind of cases are usually may be better dealt with in oral procedures such as in the district courts.
Um We have also different projects trying to increase awareness among various groups on how to use these different remedies.
For example, at the moment, we are focusing on religious minorities, especially on Muslims and Jewish organizations and congregations that we have brought together for roundtable discussions and we're organizing some discussions also at the local level and bringing together authorities and these groups to increase awareness and the and information and also on how to use these different bodies available.
There have been discussions on possibility to merge these various organs.
Sorry.
1 second.
This was mentioned in the government program that the government will examine the duties of the specialized ombudsman to identify possible overlaps and any potentials for savings in this respect and the Ministry of Justice appointed a working group to examine this issue in October 24.
And to examine the possibilities to develop and merge the duties of these various actors and to see if the work could be more efficient.
The members of the working group had totally divergent views on many of these topics, and this report was published in April last year.
This report discusses circumstances both in favor of and against the merger of the ombudsman's duties, but in the end, many of the ministries submitted a joint statement in which they consider it important that the ombudsman of equality and the non discrimination ombudsman continue as independent actors.
At the present, there are no legislative changes being prepared or planned.
I think previously, many of the women's organizations have been very skeptical and maybe being afraid that the work of the equality ombudsman would weaken if this merge would take place.
Thank you.
Han from the Ministry of Justice.
On statistics, we will provide the committee with selected court statistics on certain crimes relevant in light of the convention, civil disputes based on the Nondiscrimination Act, and also complaints concerning decisions of the nondiscrimination and equality Tribunal, and we'll also send you statistics of the nondiscrimination ombudsman of the non discrimination and equality Tribunal.
Also the most recent numbers that we have on hate crimes reported to the police, these are from 2024.
Unfortunately, the statistics for last year have not yet been published.
Also, we will provide you with the budgets of certain human rights mechanisms.
Then on impact assessments and assessments related to non discrimination and human rights in the legislative process, Um, all legislative proposals must be assessed in relation to the Constitution as well as Finland's international human rights obligations, and each ministry is responsible for safeguarding fundamental and human rights in legislative drafting within its mandate.
With regard to human rights impact assessments, the Ministry of Justice has been developing in developing guidance and training for law drafters.
New guidelines for impact assessments in the legislative process were published in 2022, The guidance guidelines include guidance on human rights impacts as well as impact assessments related to non discrimination, dis, gender, children, and persons with disabilities, et cetera.
The guidelines also emphasize the importance of taking into account intersecting forms of discrimination.
In addition, a separate more in depth guide on human rights impact assessments in law drafting was also published in 2022, which also emphasizes the importance of assessing impacts on the rights of different population groups, especially groups in vulnerable situations.
We also have had an existing guideline assessing impacts on equality and non discrimination in the legislative process.
The guidelines are from 2014.
And in addition, an online tool for assessing equality is also available, and this tool can also be used in legislative drafting.
And law drafters have been provided training on human rights impact assessments as well as non discrimination and equality impacts.
The basic course on law drafting, which is arranged twice a year, includes a lecture on human rights impacts and equality impacts.
In addition, thematic trainings and events have been arranged annually, including training workshops on human rights impact assessments, and a training and discussion event on impact assessments related to non discrimination and gender equality was held in 2025.
After the publishing of the new guidelines and the specific Human Rights impact assessment guide, there has been an increase in government proposals that contain assessments related to human rights.
In 2023, when most of the government proposals that had been prepared were prepared based on the old guidelines, um, 39% of government proposals included assessments related to human rights, whereas in 2025, the number was 59% and so far this year the number is 62%.
This includes related topics such as gender impacts, non discrimination impacts, data protection impacts, children's rights, rights of persons disability with disabilities, et cetera Thank you.
To the nondiscrimination and equality Tribunal.
Another topic that has been discussed and also in this report that I mentioned on the effects of the 2023 reform is whether the tribunal should be given the mandate to deal with cases in working life when it comes to the Nondiscrimination Act.
This report opens up pros and cons and of course, from the individual's perspective, it would increase the possibility to bring cases.
From the employers were not very keen on having this change made.
The report also includes detailed information on what provision would need to be amended and so on.
It's a very practical tool in case the next government or somebody later on want to proceed in this respect.
Thank you.
Also, I like to continue and also like to apologize.
I didn't introduce myself because I was so excited.
My name is Katrina Nas and I come from the Prime Minister's office and I would like to continue about the National Action Plan against racism and about the measurable results that you asked about.
The program is still ongoing and we are putting a lot of effort in measuring impact of the action plan.
We have a researcher commissioned working at the University of Helsinki and he's doing the evaluation report So we prepared also indicators for evaluation for each of the 62 measures.
So I'm really hoping that we will have a tangible evaluation report early next year.
As regards the previous action plan, actually, the evaluation that we commissioned, um, mainly, looked at the process of the action plan.
So the outcomes of the evaluation were mostly touching on the negotiation and consultation with different groups and so on.
We got a relatively positive evaluation from that.
Um, you also asked about coordinating the policies concerning implementation of a non discrimination Act.
Indeed, um, it's a lot of work because there are so many actors, thousands of employers and, um, educational institutes and public authorities who are doing equality planning and we have one very good example at the moment ongoing as part of the National Action Plan against racism.
It's actually funded by the Minister for Education and Culture.
It's a center of expertise to youth workers in Finland and they have produced information about the capacity gaps in the sector, and also based on this assessment, they have produced training programs and that's very interesting pilot project also for other sectors to follow up.
That is what I would like to at this point.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Anna Brune.
I come from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and employment, and I would like to continue on statistics.
As mentioned, we do not in Finland maintain official population registers based on ethnicity.
But however, we do collect extensive information on indicators such as country of birth, nationality, and mother tongue.
This data supports the development and evaluation of equality and, for instance, inclusion policies in Finland.
We also analyze regularly labor market outcomes of people with immigrant background, including differences in employment rates, labor market participation, and career development.
This information helps us identify structural barriers and support targeted policy measures.
Research commissioned by public authorities has also highlighted issues such as recruitment discrimination and unequal labor market outcomes, and also this research continues to inform policy development.
We have further information on labor market outcomes for people that have moved to Finland for different reasons.
This has been published in a recent article which we can disseminate to the committee later on.
Thank you.
Mr.
Chair, respectful members.
Committee.
My name is Katarina Simon and I'm from the Ministry of the Interior.
Very briefly about the statistics the police University College is publishing yearly, a hate crime survey in which, for instance, the numbers, the trends, origin of victims, nationality of the victims, and different indicators come up yearly.
I'm happy to discuss that later during segment two.
Secondly, what happens after your recommendations? Much happens after your recommendations in different administrations.
For, for instance, in the police sector, directives are issued on the basis of human rights and fundamental rights guidelines to guide normal police activity, manuals, different projects, a lot happens is ongoing.
Especially in the field also, and I'll talk about this later as well.
The police University College has paid a lot of attention to non discrimination and equality so that the police curriculum is fine tuned along the recommendations.
But I'll talk about this a bit later.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, delegation, for your replies.
Now I'm going to open the floor for a brief follow up questions by the country task force and members of the committee, Mr.
Balsjk, We have about 10 minutes for this.
Thank you, chair.
I think I'll use less and leave my colleagues at the committee also plenty of opportunity.
Thank you very much for your answers and feedback.
Let me share a comment or again, to follow up on the issue of statistics.
We are fully aware that the traditional census is no longer um, let's say operated is no longer a method since 1990s as a method of collecting statistics, nevertheless, you have just a different system which is register based, that's fully understandable.
Nevertheless, um, when it comes to these statistics that are of particular interest for us, that is dis aggregated by ethnicity, well, you still do have them, as I understand, you acquire them through different methods.
But would you please address it? Is it enough to ask about mother tongue? Does it give you the full picture as regards ethnicity? Because perhaps so.
Nevertheless, would you say that this is the main method which is practiced by statistics in Finland to acquire data which indirectly indicate to ethnicity? That would be interesting.
Now, just briefly, thank you for additional explanations about the non discrimination equality Tribunal.
If by any chance you might have some examples of its case law that refer particularly to discrimination as understood by this convention in Article 1.
In other words, if there are cases concerning racial discrimination and those based on descent, ethnicity, we would very much appreciate learning about such cases.
In fact, it appears that this body has been able to produce interesting case law also in this regard.
So this would be my two issues for the moment, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Emsnad Co reporter.
Thank you, Chair, and I would like to welcome the Finland team here with us today.
I hope, by the end of tomorrow or by the end of session tomorrow morning, we'll have fruitful and productive dialogue.
Actually, I don't have any question because I will ask my question in my section which is coming.
Thank you.
The floor is open to all members.
Madam Stavrinai.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair and let me warmly welcome the stem delegation of Finland.
Let me go back to what the country reporter, my colleague, Mr.
Balszak said about statistics and make it a little bit more concrete like an example.
Let's say that we have a child born in Finland, of parents not born in Finland.
Of African descent, the child, or, you know, with a different last name which sounds, last name from Finland.
Speaking perfect finish, where are we finding? The fact, for instance, this child, I mean, I would argue that still faces discrimination, you know, as we have seen in, uh, or in various ways, and probably, you know, also, let's say, as everywhere in the world, African descent in access to, for instance, to health care in practice.
So how do we cover this case in the system that we collect data and statistics because you say that you don't do it on ethnic origin, but other ways.
So in this particular case, where, you know, most of the issues finally, you know, disappear in a way, and it remains only an issue that cannot be if you don't collect statistics data and disaggregate them, the issue that might still be an issue of discrimination in practice disappears.
So how do you do it in practice so that I understand better? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Shepherd.
Thank you very much Chair and may I add my own welcome to the delegation, Your Excellency, and your team.
Thank you for being here.
Now, during your opening remarks, Your Excellency, you mentioned challenging fiscal space.
When there is a challenge in the fiscal space.
So sectors are affected more than others.
I'm curious about whether there is a inventory on the sectors in your society which are most affected by these challenging fiscal times.
Yes, that's my question.
Thank you.
Thank you.
F is open.
Mr.
Gabi you have the floor.
Chair, in turn, I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to the delegation and I'd like to thank Mr.
Balszk.
I'd also like to thank Madame Almsad for the report.
We wanted to welcome this delegation, basically made up of women, which I think is always excellent news.
But sometimes there needs to be a balance, let's not overlook the men.
There was a speaker earlier on who talked about the implementation of the concluding observations in terms of your guidelines, prospectuses, how you train your defense forces.
What's the oversight? How do you keep tabs of what actually is being done in terms of these guidelines to ensure that the respective bodies are actually complying with these guidelines? Is when you form of oversight? Do you have sometimes your security forces may go beyond their competencies.
Sometimes when legal decisions are taken and enforcement decisions are taken, you might find that there are courts that have handed down sentences in favor of the evicted, but perhaps the police or other forces still expel individuals.
I just wonder what oversight system you have in place for your security and law enforcement agencies.
You also talked about fairly close cooperation with the civil society, particularly with a view to this dialogue.
What form of cooperation does that take? What is the input that is coming from civil society, particularly when it comes to the examination of the reports by the state parties? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Bis, Mr.
Chair.
About a minute and a half.
Mr.
Balsjt? Thank you.
If so, then I would have a very well, perhaps minor point, but still important one.
I have not mentioned in my little exposite that in fact, as regards remedies in Finland, what the applicants also may consider is our convention in Article 14 that Finland recognized this competence to submit individual communications, but here comes my question.
There is this forgotten part of our convention, which is Article 14 paragraph two, which basically says, I will not quote it in detail, but it says that the state party, which recognized our competence, also may indicate a body within its national legal order which shall be competent to receive complaints.
When you declared in 1994 that applicants may submit individual communications, you haven't indicated any 32 years ago.
But let me ask you this if now somebody would like to apply and there are some notable cases, by the way.
We will discuss about one of them tomorrow concerning Sami population.
But if an applicant would now like to go to us, of course, he or she needs to exhaust domestic remedies as regards courts.
But would you say that an applicant should also go to the tribunal before addressing us or not necessarily.
What would be now the right way to proceed? If an applicant from Finland would like to address us under Article 14.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, colleagues.
I turn towards the delegation for the replies.
You have 20 minutes, Madam.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairperson, distinguished members of the committee.
With regard to the economics and the very challenging fiscal situation we have in the Finland, I must say that all sectors are affected at the moment.
There is no distinction whether it's social benefits or whether it's education, whether it's support to civil society organizations or development cooperation.
Security situation in Finland and around Finland and in Europe has drastically changed.
This also has an impact on the fiscal situation.
If something is prioritized is the domestic national security and Finland is holding also the EU border along border security issues are now on agenda and of course, funds are appropriate towards this sector.
But basically all government sectors are having now very heavy times and impacted by this fiscal situation in Finland.
Then I give floor to the Ministry of Justice to be followed by colleagues, please.
Thank you.
A case law of the non discrimination and equality Tribunal.
They have various case law, for example.
There's only one case on ethnic profiling that went all the way up to the Supreme Administrative court.
They have recently given a decision regarding a head scarf that was on multiple discrimination, both region, gender, et cetera religion.
They had some years ago, a case on when there was a Nazi flag in a window and whether this was harassment or indirect discrimination, et cetera.
In the beginning of the actually when it was the previous organ before the 2015 revision of the legislation, there were lots of cases on just direct discrimination in restaurants and services.
There were also you asked about the possibilities or whether you would recommend a person to first bring a case before the tribunal before taking it, for example, for example, to your committee, I would say depends on the case, whether it would be a good idea or not.
But, for example, the discrimination tribunal, that was the previous organ, they dealt with cases regarding the rights of Sami to services in the Sami languages and they were seen as indirect discrimination based on ethnic origin and they were quite concerned almost all services in one certain municipality, for example, they were quite interesting and also cases outside the Sami Homeland area were dealt with.
So, it could be interesting to start with the tribunal.
Thank you.
Thank.
Thank you from the Ministry of Justice on statistics related to second generation immigrants, as I understand it, it is possible to search people from the register system based on parents nationality.
We do have statistics on second generation immigrants and we will provide updated population statistics for the committee separately.
Also, regarding the statistics, the register data that we have is also complemented by surveys.
For instance, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare collects survey data on the foreign born adult population living in Finland and these results can be examined, for instance, by background country groups, so we can see the differences between different country groups by gender, by age group, education, and reason for migration.
So we have different forms of data.
And then of course, we also have extensive research, some of which is commissioned by public authorities, but also, of course, by universities and so on.
And these complement these official of survey and register based information so that we get a full picture, also including regarding sort of other aspects.
Thank you.
I'd like to answer regarding the question on law enforcement.
So we have several layers of legal oversight.
First of all, National Police Board is monitoring the police departments and can take several cases official under scrutiny.
Second layer is the Ministry of the Interior, which practices legal oversight of the law enforcement.
Third higher layer are the highest monitoring bodies, the chancellor of Justice and the parliamentary ombudsman also and who follow how the police executes its mandate.
But this is not the only way to proceed if something is not right.
Is always the way of administrative complaint.
The police web pages instruct very carefully how to make an administrative complaint either to the police station which is in question or the higher bodies like the National Police Board.
Also, it's a possibility to make a report of a crime if a police is suspected of having breached the law.
But also, and this is again the topic for the second segment, I think, but there are also internal monitoring mechanism in the police force because if you have set targets like in non discrimination policy or equality policies.
There are indicators, barometers, and so on so that the policy itself can follow how, for instance, teaching is going on if people have understood the aims and so forth.
You have all these external recours and the internal mechanisms to monitor the compliance.
Thank you.
Continue on the cooperation with civil society organizations.
In the framework of the National Action Plan against racism, our aim is to support the role of civil society in planning, implementation, and monitoring of the efforts.
To that end, we have organized a national forum for civil society organizations in 2024.
We organized call for funding proposals in 2025 and these projects, they built strategic partnerships with us as they implement the priority areas of the action plan also.
Finally, we have summoned a network of CSOs and researchers by the Prime Minister's office to follow up and evaluate the results of the current action plan.
This network is currently steered by an independent steering group that had representatives from different ethnic minority groups and the network is preparing a shadow evaluation report of the action plan to be published early next year.
Dear committee members, my name is Ella Akinan and I'm from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
Regarding health care and discrimination, we have some data from the findings on the Monesomi 2022 study, according to its 9% of people with a migrant background reported experiencing discrimination within social and health care services during the previous year compared with 4% of the total population.
And experiences were particularly common among individuals originating from Africa, excluding North Africa and the Middle East North Africa.
As mentioned before, systematic data is only available to a limited extent, main conclusions were that these experiences remain unfortunately widespread and they indicate a persistent need to strengthen anti discrimination and anti racist measures across multiple societal domains, including in healthcare.
Thank you.
A few bit of information still about case law from the tribunal.
Other examples are housing, the housing sector and Roma, people not getting municipal housing.
Another example is a foreign national who did not get these codes from a bank to use Internet banking.
Just to mention a couple of them.
Thanks.
We seem to have time, so I will add something about the National Discrimination monitoring System, which is a very important tool for us for the evidence base.
In the framework of this system, we produce regularly data reports, discrimination in Finland reports.
Uh, the latest report is from 2023, and it is a compilation report of this survey data, EU level data from Fundamental Rights Agency and Eurobarometer and so on, and also academic research.
These data reports are our response to an attempt to make a coherent picture of the phenomenon and situation in the country, um, and it seems quite a good approach.
At the moment, next report is being prepared and it's going to be published also early next year.
The Sonym from the Ministry of Education and culture.
I know that we're going to discuss education specifically in the second part, but I thought that maybe in this context to how we follow the progression of the So going to school with children with immigrant background, whether the parents are born in Finland or abroad.
Like for instance, in connection with the PSA 22, there was taking a bigger survey, bigger proportion of pupils with immigrant background and that gave us information about the progression of their studies.
I will come back to that and the consequences of that during this government period, but also in line in the labor market, the School Health Survey that is conducted on a regular basis and that we can see that the children and young people with immigrant background often face greater challenges in health well being and safety than those whose parents are both of Finnish origin.
The latest serve is 125 and 21% of foreign born pupils with an immigrant background, specifically in grades eight and nine, in the teenage reported experiencing discrimination or bullying at school or during their free time within the past year and that corresponds bonding figure for young people whose parents are both of F origin is 31%, so there is a significant difference.
But the promotion health study also highlights a number of strengths with which we can notice that 80% of foreign born children with an immigrant background in grades four and five state they enjoyed going to the school and that on the contrary, was a higher figure than of those children whose parents are both of Finnish origin.
But this is very valuable information.
Yeah.
I thank the delegation.
If we think about Finland, our assessment is that there is a lot of very substantive data available, and that is because we have these regular parameters and we have these surveys.
We have For instance Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, which is a assigned to produce very comprehensive studies of the whole population in Finland, including our foreigners.
This information may not be in a so called traditional format of statistics, but it's more substantive one.
There is always the substantive ankle how we address this issue.
The data is available there and it is quite comprehensive at the moment.
I believe that this concludes our delegation's replies.
Thank you very much, delegation, for your replies.
Now, we will take a break.
I'll to be back at 4:30.
You have excellent time.
You have to.
Very good.
Otherwise how well this is structured? Because this is really helping the dialogue that you have these clear segments.
Otherwise, it's impossible, especially with the with the interpretation, it becomes very difficult.
Very well structured.
I try to count minutes.
Okay.
To The Segment two, I'll immediately give the floor to the country court reporter, Madame El Misnad.
Madame Al Misnad you have 20 minutes and you have the floor.
I don't know what's wrong with my voice.
We'll be on hate speech, hate crimes, and the first part of education.
The committee acknowledged the state party for updating its guidelines on hate crimes including offensive related to intolerance, defamation, incitement, and hate speech.
It's also welcomes the prioritization of hate speech and hate crime in police training, education, and the investigation of reported cases, as well as the state combating effort according to the action plan to compact racism and hate speech.
However, the government action plan did not include legislative measure to assess this area.
Another study examining the experience of linguistic minorities and their enjoyment of fundamental rights, that individual whose native language is Arabic experience higher level of harassment and violence compared with the other group in the study.
Also report in 2024 that Finland has the highest level of discrimination against Muslim.
Some studies indicate that the reported number of hate speech incident and hate crime may be underestimated due to the absence of comprehensive tracking monitoring system.
Rationally and ethnically motivated violent extreme online platform places ethnic minies community at risk of being targeted by the far right individuals.
The committee report notes in particular the reported 1808 suspect hate crimes recorded by the police in 2024, the highest number recorded to date and evidence that only a minority of victims report hate crimes to authority, so they prefer to go to the police than the official authority.
The committee the committee is also concerned that the hate speech by politician and other high official public can contribute to an environment in which minorities feel unsafe and may lose confidence in public institution.
The committee is also concerned by the gap in hate crime and hate speech legislation.
It's reported that the criminal law framework fails to directly criminalize direct to individual to an individual member of a protected group rather than a group as such, as well as a denial or cross minoring I'm not going to say this part, sorry.
A serious international crime, as well as the denial of a denial as the trivialization of hate crimes are not on all cases subject to investigation or prosecution without complaint from the victim.
The committee is also concerned that QE surveillance and information gathering operation conducted by Helsinki Police Department 2013-2015 was found by the non discrimination ombudsman to have been discriminatory and prohibited under the Nondiscrimination Act.
The hate speech towards minority towards minority like African people from African descent, Muslim Roma, migrant Sami remain widespread and increasing.
Most cases of hate speech, as I said before, reported to the police.
The question is as follows, or the committee would like information on the following? What result has been achieved through government initiative and also the main reporter, I mentioned that aimed at reducing hate speech and hate crime.
How have these measures positively impacted affected minorities? What legal measures have been taken to address hate speech and discriminate content on online and social media platform, including conduct by public official and parliament member and politician? Please provide update statistic on the number of complaint received, investigated, and resolved, as well as the outcome of these investigations, including convention and compensation awarded to victims.
What measures has the third party taken to prevent and eliminate racial profiling, including systemic collection of data on police stop, identity check, and border control practices.
What measures have been implemented to address the under reporting of hate crimes and incident of discrimination? What measures have been taken to ensure that law enforcement official as well as private security guard and personnel do not engage in a racially motivated violence, discrimination or racial profiling? Are there a plan to reform the criminal code to ensure that incitement to hatred, violence or discrimination direct to individual members of a protecting group is criminalized.
The public cond denial and cross trifling Anyway.
Also, are there reform envisaged to ensure that hate crime and hate speech offenses can be protected without complaint from the victim? What measures has the state party taken in relation to QR operation by Helsinki police, which is systematically recorded the movement of personnel of Roma data people in Helsinki? The education part, of course, Finland has a global reputation of excellence in education and consistently ranks highly on international education criteria like Teams and Pisa.
In my country, when we started our education reform, 20 years ago, we said you should go to Finland and see how they made it.
We sent so many delegation to Finland to learn.
We are better now, but not at the Finnish level.
Okay.
The same time, the committee is concerned that racism and racist bullying continue to affect children education system.
According to that reported by the Ministry of Justice, racist bullying related to skin color, language or foreign background was experienced by 13% of young people with multicultural background or 26% of second generation young people with a foreign background, and 31% of first generation young people with foreign background.
Such experience has also been associated with school attendance, educational performance, and transition to upper secondary school.
Human rights education and research and academia and research center who are focusing on human rights issues has been experiencing cut in their funding to research on racism, migration, discrimination, hate speech and area of human rights.
Although some of your colleague here mentioned that there is research, but I think that research may be under government funding or something because there have been a The committee is concerned about whether teacher and school administrator have sufficient training and capacity to identify and respond to racism.
Racist bullying, stereotype and hate speech, including online environment.
The question are, what systematic training is provided to teacher and school administrator to identify and respond to social discrimination, racist bullying, stereotype, and hate speech, and how its effectiveness is assessed.
What measures have been taken to prevent, record, and respond to racist bullying in school? Could the state party provide update data on prevalence on compliant and outcomes? How does the state party ensure that national curriculum adequately address the history and contemporary manifestation of racism and racial discrimination? What measures are being taken to strengthen media and digital literacy among children so that they can identify racist propaganda, stereotypes, and hate speech online? I think this is all from me for today.
Thank you, Chair.
God, I do not have to micro.
Thank you, Madame Amn I return the floor now to the delegation for replies to the court reporter's questions.
You have 25 minutes, madam.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairperson, distinguished members of the committee.
The government of Prime Minister Petro Or is firmly committed to combating racism, xenophobia, and discrimination.
This commitment is not only reflected in statements of principle, but also in a number of concrete measures taken during this government term as our delegation has already explained.
We are fully aware in the state administration that a single negative incident can very easily overshadow ten positive developments, and this is particularly true in questions relating to racism and discrimination where individual statements understandably attract significant public attention.
At the same time, we believe that the government's record should be assessed as a whole, including the concrete measures it has taken and continue to take during this government term to promote equality and non discrimination.
There has indeed been a lot of debate and considerable public discussion in Finland about racism and xenophobia during this current government term and much of this debate was triggered by statements made by individual political figures.
The government has not sought to dismiss the concerns raised by this debate.
As Prime Minister Orpo has repeatedly made clear, there is no place for racism or discrimination in Finnish society.
This is the position of the government as a whole.
And before entering this meeting room, I checked the main Finnish newspaper, Helsingianat, and there was a big heading, our president of the Republic, Aleksander Stop has stated today that I do not accept racism in any form.
It's a very strong statement and it also commitment of the government.
Now, I'm happy to give floor first to the Ministry of Justice, please.
Thank you.
I will continue on legislation concerning hate crime and hate speech.
The Finnish Criminal Code does not define hate crime or hate speech as a standalone crime.
However, according to Chapter six, Section five of the Criminal Code, commission of an offense for a motive based on race, color, descent, national, or ethnic origin, religion, or belief, gender, sexual orientation or disability or for another comparable motive may be a basis for increasing the punishment.
This section can be applied in court to any criminal offense.
There are also specific criminal provisions in the criminal code that may be applied to hate speech against different population groups or members of population groups.
The most relevant provisions are agitation against the population group and its aggravated form as well, denial of a serious international offense, public exhortation to an offense, aggravated defamation and illegal threat.
The Human Rights Center mentioned EU legislation and its implementation.
And in 2021, the European Commission did initiate an infringement process against Finland for incomprehensive implementation of the EU framework decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.
Different measures have been taken by Finland and the Ministry of Justice in response to the infringement procedure.
First, the section on the denial of a serious international offense was added to the Criminal Code in January 2026.
Um, In addition, the Ministry of Justice appointed a rapporteur to research how to develop the criminal law in other ways to better fulfill the requirements of the EU framework decision.
The report was finalized and published in 2024, and at present, preparatory legislative work is ongoing in the ministry on the basis of the report mentioned, and it is intended that a government proposal can be given to Parliament at the end of this year at the latest.
Then moving on to the criminal process and prosecuting hate speech, and crimes related to racial discrimination.
The criminal investigation authority must notify the prosecutor of an offense, the motive of which is related, for example, to race, skin, color, birth, national, or ethnic origin, religion, or belief.
Um, prosecutors have a general duty to ensure that criminal liability is realized in cases being handled by them in an equal, prompt and economical manner as required to ensure the legal protection of the parties concerned and to serve the public interest.
Most national offenses related to racism, with the exception of defamation, aggravated defamation, and illegal threats are subject to public prosecution, so the prosecutor can decide to bring charges regardless of whether the injured party requests prosecution or not.
And Finland has actively examined the effectiveness of investigating and prosecuting hate crimes.
A 2021 study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice followed hate crime cases from police investigations through prosecution and court proceedings and found shortcomings in the identification and recording of hate motives throughout the criminal process.
And the study recommended stronger use of hate crime classifications, enhanced cooperation between police and prosecutors, and updated investigative guidance and training for criminal justice authorities.
Then moving on to more to the prosecutors.
Prosecutors handle hate crimes and freedom of expression offenses as part of their core duties in enforcing criminal liability.
Criminal cases classified as hate crimes may be assigned to any prosecutor, whereas cases involving freedom of expression are generally handled by prosecutors who specialize in freedom of expression cases.
Also, the prosecutor General has an exclusive jurisdiction in matters concerning offenses subject to public prosecution that are based on the content of a published message.
The prosecutor General ultimately approves all charging decisions made by local prosecutors in freedom of expression cases.
This ensures a nationally consistent approach and also provides an opportunity to verify the substance and quality of prosecutorial decisions.
Most hate crime cases are handled by local prosecutors in the prosecution areas.
Due to relatively low number of cases, only a few prosecutors in prosecution areas actually prosecute hate crime cases.
These prosecutors have formed a network to share information and experiences.
The Southern Finland prosecutors District has a dedicated freedom of expression and hate crime team.
However, other districts have also been instructed by the prosecutor General's office that in view of the human rights dimensions of such cases, freedom of expression cases in particular should be handled only by prosecutors who have sufficient expertise in the subject matter.
Also, the Office of the prosecutor General employs a prosecutor who specializes in this field and provides support to local prosecutors on issues relating to these matters.
There's also training for prosecutors on hate crimes and criminally punishable hate speech.
The national prosecution authority has written guidance on freedom of expression offenses, and there are annual trainings for prosecutors and judges on matters related to this field.
Thank you for your very pertinent questions.
I will give some information on various projects that the Ministry of Justice has carried out during the previous years when it comes to hate speech.
They have been prepared as projects and we have made use of EU funding, but still these projects form a whole and they could be seen as a whole and always the next project is based on what has been done previously.
Generally, these projects has focused on all discrimination grounds protected in the Nondiscrimination Act.
We had them against hate projects that focused on the development on hate crime reporting on the enhancement of the capacity of the police, prosecutors and judges to act against hate crime and hate speech and on the development of support services for victims of hate crime.
After that, starting in 2019 to 2021, we had the facts against hate project and the aim was to improve the effectiveness of work against hate crime and hate speech, aimed to develop data collection, improve local cooperation practices, produce materials to support work against hate crime and hate speech.
After that, 2021-2023, we had the capable project aimed at strengthening work against hate crime and harassment, especially through developing the competence of professionals in various fields.
And finally, the peer action against hate in 2023 to 2024 and at the end was to intensify the intervention in racism discrimination and hate crime through peer learning with the support of both the authorities and civil society actors.
This project included an e learning course linked to the rights of the child, a non discriminatory early childhood education and care school and educational institution.
Providing tools for professionals who interact with children and young people.
For example, on how to identify and intervene in hate incidents.
This e learning course is still available for anyone on the website.
All these projects have been including an evaluation part through internal evaluation processes involving project partners, steering committee members, and relevant external stakeholders.
The evaluation methods include structured questionnaires, self assessment, stakeholder workshop, steering committee discussions, and reviews of activities and outputs.
The assessments examined project implementation and achievements of objectives, partnership, cooperation, capacity building, efforts, sustainability, and outreach.
Overall, the evaluation indicated strong partner cooperation, effective project coordination, and progress towards the project s and positive impacts on stakeholder capacity and cross sectoral collaboration.
The evaluations also helped identify lessons learned and areas for further development, particularly regarding communication, visibility, and the sustainability of project results.
I can also mention that a few years ago, we had a We Finnish social media platforms to discuss monitoring hate speech online.
It was linked to the EU Commissions code of conduct that they published together with these big international IT companies and offered some training on what is prohibited the limits to freedom of speech and we brought together these Finnish smaller companies with these big big international companies and they gave experiences on how they monitor hate speech online and so on.
None of these Finnish actors were interested to voluntarily commit to the code of conduct, but I think we managed to give them some education anyway.
Now this work is being done within the framework of the Digital Service Act and I believe we have some information from our colleagues at the Ministry of Communication.
And this government period, we are coordinating a network for good culture of debate.
It's one of the measures mentioned in the action plan against racism.
It brings together key actors in the field, both authorities and the organizations.
The network collects good practices, maintains situational awareness, and disseminates information between the actors and I think Karina already mentioned that this network has I will discuss international recommendations received.
Yes, and you already mentioned the report.
That was published recently.
I could also mention you asked whether any reform is envisaged to make it possible to bring further complaints even without an individual when it comes to the Nondiscrimination Act.
This is already possible that the nondiscrimination ombudsman can bring a case on harassment.
For example, online hate speech as a form of discrimination before the tribunal, even if nobody has contacted the office themselves and the tribunal can prohibit the act to continue.
With possibly harassing behavior.
Thank you.
Start by addressing the question of under reporting of hate crimes, what has been done.
Firstly, in Finland, it is relatively easy to report a crime.
Either you do it in person by visiting a police station, or you do it online.
The online reporting system is very easy and it's very accessible and a new functionality was introduced exactly to tackle this problem of under reporting because many times not only the police but also the victims might not be able to explain well when they report a crime, what has happened.
There is a functionality which forces the one reporting a crime to take a stance, whether she or he thinks this is a hate crime.
The system flags immediately.
This out to the police and they'll look into it.
But what is key also is that the police is able to investigate, to understand the character of hate crimes and the National Police Board has issued a directive, a very detailed directive on how this is to be done.
I believe it's valid until 2030, if I recall correctly.
Explains the phenomenon.
It gives hate crime indicators for guiding the instructions, investigations.
There is a detailed instruction also that if a hate crime is concerned, the police need to contact the prosecutor's office because a hate crime is a crime which is to be announced to the prosecutor and the prosecutor then will inform the police if she or he thinks there is enough evidence for the procedure.
So there is a directive on this as well, and there is a third directive on how to write how to describe the hate crime in the police system.
This is very important for the investigation.
So there are detailed instructions on identification, how to do the markings in the police data system, and how to inform the prosecutor.
That is one way by directives.
The third way is, of course, preventive police work because hate crimes remain under reported, especially with different minorities.
Now I need to consult my notes, but the police has been doing a lot of um a lot of preventing.
Let me see.
Of course, I can find here.
Well, I can find it, but I'll tell you what I know.
The police has been in the field, so to speak, with different minorities for many years.
There's been a strategy on preventive police work so that the police and the minorities gain trust.
This has been important with all different minorities and especially with the Roma minority.
And the police is present in many official bodies where authorities and the minorities cooperate.
This is to gain trust.
With trust, you will lower the threshold for reporting.
Then I'll tackle the issue of how to prevent that the police does not engage in racial violence.
So the teaching is the one way.
The university curriculum went through big reform in 2022 and the university curriculum, both for the bachelor and the master levels, is very human rights orientated.
Human rights are a cross cutting theme in all police education.
So um One of the general competencies in the curriculum is an ethical approach, which includes explicitly the promotion of non discrimination and equality.
The cross cutting themes in both of these courses, Bachelor and Master are fundamental and human rights as well as an ethical approach.
In addition to that, in the higher degree, the themes of non discrimination and equality are clearly visible as competence goals.
And not only that, but the police itself has gone through a lot of work in establishing and taking into practice an ethical code as well as police values.
Yearly, there is a discussion.
Each police officers has a discussion with the superiors and these themes, the ethical code and the values are inside the discussion to see how this person has a working for these values, how they have assimilated the values.
I'll share this information with the committee, but I'll just quickly say the ethical code and the values.
Number one, ethical code.
Policing is predictable and has always a legal basis.
The police acts in an equal and fair manner.
The police has a positive attitude to transparency.
The police conduct is exemplary, the police is impartial and independent.
Police staff work with a sense of community.
P values are evident in leadership and the police use their resources appropriately, effectively, and responsively.
I'll share this with you.
There are more details and the values are fairness, courageousness, always reliable.
This is the you can find this on the police webpages.
But what I'm saying is that this is an ongoing work, trying to work on the culture of how the police acts.
In addition to this, which is very interesting is how the the police force is because the university college has a program which is diversity in recruitment and they engage in several actions to make the police corps multi ethnic so that also minorities are represented in the police because the police wants to be the police for the whole Finland.
Specific actions are, for instance, the um They bring the carrier stories to the national minorities, they visit the sumi territories, they try to make the police profession appealing also to the minorities.
Diversity in recruitment is one of the goals in the nondiscrimination and equality plan, which I will also share with the committee.
And what is also in this recruitment is that it is anonymous, which means that no age and gender, nationality, ethnicity comes up at the recruiting stage before the interviews.
I like that because of the age.
The last, the way of administrative complaints is always available If someone is suspecting the police of racist actions, there are several cases of administrative complaints by the police stations, by the National Police Board and the parliamentary ombudsman has also looked into the matters, and there is always the possibility to file also a criminal complaint if it's suspected that the police has committed a crime.
Thank you.
For the education, do I say something briefly or I can give you two more.
Two more.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for the questions concerning education.
We've had some pizza success, but we're being quite worried about the decline in the learning results in Finland in the later years.
Actually at the moment, we've had a specific focus in strengthening basic skills.
Language the competencies of language of instruction.
This has meant several focused initiatives in strengthening the school success for children with immigrant backgrounds.
Just to mention stabilizing equity funding, equality funding to schools and education providers in the socioeconomically challenged areas, reform of support for learning and school attendance.
There are now a new support form like learning of the language in each school subject as a group support forum for students, trying to learn the subject specific vocabulary, for instance, in different school subjects and also additional resources to language learning and development in Finnish or Swedish as a second language teaching.
And also we have preparatory education, so now additional up to two up to two years preparatory education if needed.
But currently what's most important here today that we are currently running a comprehensive development program that was mentioned in the opening remarks that aims to strengthen the competence of education and training professional in promoting equity to enhance anti discrimination work, and to improve knowledge base in these areas.
Teachers are now offered continuous training in equity and non discrimination work in schools and how to promote it actively.
The very central aim is to support teachers and educators to identify inequalities and discriminatory practices and to implement anti racist pedagogy.
The program provides information, guidance, and practical tools for this.
In connection to the program, we have also had activities that include hearing of the experiences of children and young people regarding the implementation of equality, equity, and non discrimination in schools and educational institutions.
And as a part of the program, we've been looking into how to enhance cooperation between schools and families with immigrant background.
As we know that this is a question of cooperation between schools and parents and the whole school community.
Then update some updated legislation after the last report that Finland has strengthened its legislative framework to enable early intervention and to reinforce the rights and protection of pupils and students.
The amendments were introduced 2022, both in the Basic Dee, Vocational Education and Training Act, and General Upper Secondary Education Act, as well as Act on Preparatory education for degree programs.
And the aim is to prevent bullying, harassment and violence in schools and educational institutions while ensuring a safe learning environment for everyone.
Under this revised Basic Education Act, pupils now have a clear obligation not to engage in bullying or discrimination.
Thank you also.
I'll come back to the other questions in the second part.
Yes, you will have time for that.
I thank the delegation for the replies.
I will open the floor for the follow up questions by the country reporters and other members of the committee.
Madam Amstad Thank you Chair.
Thank you all for this very long extensive response.
But I think the president of the country statement, what is written in what they call it the criminal code, what is written in all of that, it's beautiful.
I mean, it's the best anybody can hear.
But the issue is what's happening in reality in the society.
For instance, hate speech and hate crime, even reported by Ac, which is a European commission, which said that Acy has consistently urged Finnish authorities proactively address continuing rising race and intolerance either online or in public discourse.
So this is one point.
The other point is, yeah, I mean, those politician who went online and give messages racist message against certain group of the community.
Was there any action taken, any disciplinary? Because if that didn't happen, this will encourage other people to do it.
I mean, if the top people can do that, then that's mean the whole country is like this.
The other one is a The other one is we need data.
I mean, we have on the number of hate crimes, hate speech, and it's very important.
Without the data, it's difficult to judge or make assessment.
Also, one of the a team here mentioned you can complain either in person or online.
Online is fine if you are educated, you have a computer at home.
But we know that most people who have been discriminated against is coming always from low economic status, low social status, and low education level.
Maybe this is good for the total population, but it's not maybe possible for other part of the community.
The only thing I said, I mean, As your policies, your rule, your regulation is the best even comparing in my country.
But what is happening in the society? I think there is no shame in acknowledging that there is a problem.
This problem start rising since 2015.
Why it's rising? There must be reason, there must be research on that.
I think we need to acknowledge in order to find solution.
But thank you for your response.
Thank you, Mr.
Balsaj.
Do you have any questions? No.
Madame Mensa Sosa.
You have the floor, Madame Esme.
It's the first time I'm taking the floor, so I wanted to extend a very warm welcome to the very feminine delegation from Finland.
I'd like to start, if I may, by picking up and supporting what Madame Al Misinad just said.
Because hate speech made by political figures have been mentioned by all bodies that are dealing with this particular topic.
It seems to be an upward trend.
I think there are some rulings and I don't think that's sufficient having these judgments or rulings.
I'd like to know what policy or strategy is being really adopted by the state party to actually prevent and remedy these sorts of situations.
If it carries on like this, then, you know, It's going to be a acceptance of racism because at the higher levels they're saying this, then society will follow.
Mention has also been made of education, human rights education.
I heard a member of the delegation earlier on say that human rights are included in university curricula, police training programs.
But other sources of information are telling us that it's global human general approach to human rights.
The conventions are binding, and I think it's very important that conventions are taught, particularly our particular convention and the rights and guarantees in our convention.
I'd like to know how far they are taught to the broadest amount of people and the public in general.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Madam Sporki.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm going also to build on my colleagues on hate speech because you see, of course, it's important to have statements by high level officials denouncing hate speech and racism in general.
We should not undervalue those statements because in other situations, we don't have them.
It's something that we should clearly take into account.
But personally, I think it's much more complicated and the fact that we don't have a clear law on hate speech and I welcome the study, but please do the study, make it a, a clear law which actually complies with Article 4, which has much more than the agitation.
The agitation, if I may, is very the minimum and it doesn't really reflect the object and the purpose of Article 4, which provides for more offenses, not all of them.
Can be criminally addressed.
As you know, we have a very good general recommendation number 35, excuse me, that could guide the state on which forms could be addressed by penal code, which forms require another remedy.
Now, I have to say that I'm a little bit surprised because in 1970 when Finland ratified, it's been a while and now we wouldn't discuss the legislative framework.
Also, I went back to check and I saw and I appreciate as an international lawyer, I appreciate when Finland made objections to other states reservations on hate speech.
So I really appreciate it because indeed it shows this commitment to Article 4, but it's time to have a more comprehensive approach.
Please do we cannot discuss the next time about this law.
You understand this because everything plays a role and we are at this moment of history and politics that a small measure cannot really be enough.
Even if it's important statement, I really welcome them and but we need more.
Please, if you have more information on where exactly this legislative reform on hate speech.
Because we have to say, of course, I welcome the commission's initiative, I'm sorry to say, the infringement.
But it's a pity also that our states must pay money.
You know, after, you know, the EU for obligations that have been there so long and we could save some money instead of paying money to the commission for infringement procedures.
Sorry, I'm talking as an EU also national sharing also the fact that, you know, I mean, everything is important and we need a comprehensive framework.
Because these are very difficult moments and very difficult political.
Thank you for any other information you might have on where this situation after this report on hate speech would go.
Sorry, last point.
Because I also heard something earlier and this also creates some confusion at national level.
Because if we don't have a law to discuss here, then whether exhibiting a neo at a Nazi flag is harassment or whether it's hate speech or whether it false.
Of course, it's a very specific discussion.
But then, we cannot go into details which are very important details for hate speech and to guide national authorities and avoid repeat recommendations.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
Mr.
D, you have the floor.
Thank you.
We've been talking about hate speech and its consequences.
Can the delegation give us more information on the 2024 aggressions in Lieu? I think there was hate speech in 2024 that led to actual aggression and assaults.
I think one of the two perpetrators was from some neo Nazi or former Nazi, I think it's called the Nordic resistance in Finland.
Any investigations what happened after these attacks? What about the speeches where you find it's politicians who are responsible? You have, is it called the True Finn Party, I believe.
Have they not been held responsible for hate speech? I think it was to do with miss Finland.
I think they were mocking the way they look Korean again, or Japanese, I'd like to know whether any investigations were carried out after that.
What about in the sporting Area or even playgrounds, sport more generally.
Mohammed Al Marat is a case in point which I believe he was insulted, which was basically hate crime.
Again, was anything done? Were any steps taken? Thank you.
Mr.
Gies, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chair.
Allow me, sir, also to thank the distinguished allegation from Finland.
Finland is well known for being a happy country.
I think it's one of the happiest countries in the world.
It also has a very egalitarian image.
If you like these are sometimes the good cliches for Finland and also the gender equality as well is very strong.
My colleagues have mentioned other issues.
Finland is facing huge challenges that may call into question sometimes this notion of the happy country.
I mean, you also can't be a happy country if there's exclusion and a lack of inclusion.
I have to say that I believe that there are still major challenges that Finland faces in that regard.
We have been talking about hate crime, hate speech.
Where is the problem? Where does it lie? Is it a lack of legislation, in your opinion? Not just a question of figures.
I think we need to see that there's a real political initiative and drive taken to address this.
You talked about education and how important it is, but there are difficulties there as well.
Training is very important.
I think you need to have, for instance, access to a job or training, you need to have at least be one level.
Are any mitigating measures being taken to assist vulnerable people in your happy country to have access to education and jobs? Thank you.
Madame Thank you, Madame Taber, you also asked for the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you Chair.
I would also for my part, like to extend a warm welcome to the distinguished delegation from this very female delegation from Finland.
I wanted to go back to statistics.
Finland has taken many measures.
But when we try to quantify the actual success of these policies, we need statistics.
You need some yardstick so that you can measure the impact of these measures.
Without statistics, how can you quantify what is being achieved and how far you are progressing in combating racial discrimination.
Quite a lot of people have said there aren't sufficient statistics or the right kind of statistics.
It would have been very useful to have these statistics because it is only on the basis of statistics that you can measure and quantify the impact of those measures taken to combat racial discrimination across the various domains.
Thank you.
Thanks for the questions.
Now I turn the floor to the delegation for 20 minutes.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairperson, distinguished members of the committee.
We truly appreciate this very frank and open dialogue with you on these topics.
A reference was made to the happiest nation in the world.
Indeed, the World Happiness Report singles out Finland as the happiest country in the world in 2026, and that is for the ninth year running and of course, we are very happy about that and we have also analyzed what kind of reasons there are behind that we are so content in Finland.
Of course, our genuine wish is that Finland is a happy place for all people who are within our jurisdiction.
The reference was made to a very unfortunate controversy which was initiated by the former miss Finland, who by the way, lost her crown immediately after this controversy.
What happened after that? Our Prime Minister Petro Orbo, he expressed a deep apology for offensive social media posts by individual members of parliament.
He was very strongly stating that such posts do not reflect Finland's values of equality and non discrimination.
Something what was very exceptional was that he also issued a formal apology on behalf of the Finnish government and Finnish people as well to all Asian countries.
Maybe you have seen his apology in many different Asian languages on the web.
What happened after that, the chairpersons of all parliamentary groups of the government parties discussed the conduct of these individual members of parliament and jointly condemned offensive and inappropriate behavior.
Measures were taken immediately.
Mr.
Chairperson, if I may, because we are discussing hate speech online, I would like to refer to the Digital Services Act DSA, which provides a common EU framework for digital services and online platforms.
In Finland, this DSA is implemented through the Act on Supervision of online intermediary Services, and this act entered into force in February 2024.
And this DSA requires that online platforms address illegal content, improve transparency, and protect users fundamental rights.
This includes measures concerning hate speech, online harassment, and other unlawful content.
In Finland, it is traffic, which acts as the National Digital Services Coordinator, and it supervises the implementation of the DSA.
Naturally, the European Commission directly supervises the largest online platforms and search engines in Europe.
This Digital Services Act requires online platforms to provide mechanisms through which users can report potentially illegal content and establishes procedures for handling such notices.
However, the framework does not require platforms to remove lawful content and measures must respect fundamental rights, including freedom of expression.
The objective here is to ensure that illegal content is addressed effectively while maintaining an appropriate balance between combating illegal content and protecting freedom of expression.
And then I give it to the delegation.
Visit the Prime Minister's office first, please.
Yes.
Thank you for the many good questions.
Indeed, we have to say that we have a problem and it has been acknowledged also in the National Action Plan against racism that racism in its many forms is a problem in Finland, structural racism being one of the most severe problems.
What also causes concern to us are the young people.
Um, and their believe in the future in Finland.
That is why young people is the cross cutting theme of our action plan.
We have, for example, cooperated a lot with youth organizations and organized a roundtable discussion with the media professionals or media houses in Finland and the Muslim youth.
It was a very successful and good discussion dialogue on how Muslim youth is portrayed in the media in Finland and that resulted in a project which is now ongoing on supporting Muslim youth, mentoring program for Muslim youth in the media.
That is one example, concrete example because we also want to be concrete.
Not that everything is on a very general level in administration, but we also want to make a change in people's lives.
We gave out state grants last year, and one of the priority areas was support to victims of racism or communities affected by racism.
And now we have ongoing various projects, organizing peer support to victims of racism and also workshops to raise awareness on racism and remedies against racism and providing psychosological support to the victims.
Um I'm not sure if there was something else.
Maybe I will continue later on after colleagues.
Ethnic profiling, which I unfortunately forgot on the previous round and on nordic resistance movement.
There was an operation in 2015 Koury where Helsinki Pols was indeed doing ethnic profiling with the Roma.
The parliamentary ombudsman took the case and the result was obvious it's forbidden ethnic profiling, which was immediately accepted by the National Police Board.
Several measures were taken So the ban on ethnic profiling is everywhere in the directives issued by the National Police Board and the ban has been incorporated in the curricula of the P University College, complemented with specific in service training sessions on the ban on ethnic profiling.
All around the country and there are two compulsory online courses for all police officers as well.
The course was introduced a few years ago, one about non discrimination and the other on supervision of foreign nationals.
Furthermore, there was a very fruitful project with the police and the Roma.
They wrote together a handbook on equality and cooperation.
In this handbook, also the issue of ethnic profiling was discussed and a Now the handbook is course material at the Pol University College and the Roma are lecturers at the police University College, the cooperation is working out nicely.
Also, in addition to this, the National Police Board did its own oversight of Helsinki Police Department practices and produced a very critical report and it was made clear that this type of action is not acceptable.
One concrete measure was that the IT services were tasked with deleting all previously made markings in the national database.
That hopefully doesn't happen anymore.
Regarding the Nordic resistance movement, the National Police Board brought a complaint for its what's the word? For its abolishment.
Because the, the task of the police is to look for public order and safety and the movement was violent and it was acting against the law and good manners, which is again against our associations Act.
They were obliged to ask for the court to abolish the association.
It went on appeal until the High Court of Justice and the movement was abolished in September 2020.
But evidently there are always currents which are more radical, but that's normal police activity to follow on these radical movements and act upon them if they are violent or breach the law.
Thank you.
The education in human rights to higher education.
It starts already from the early childhood education and care in Finland and it's thought that in an age appropriate manner, you learn about democracy, human rights and starting and making a continuum.
We've been now investigating what we know that has been maybe the education form where there is least teaching of these matters it's in the vocational education and training and we've now just received a survey on how to enhance democracy and human rights education in the vocational education.
But when it comes to the legislation and national curriculus, it's very strongly embedded the democracy and human rights.
It makes the value based and also like you referred to, of course, the digital competencies and media literacy are very elementary in this context and it makes a whole new scope to this whole and there has been to the support for teachers and the school has been taken up a digital competence framework in Finn schools like the competence framework, and we're currently working with the competence framework for teachers, what competencies the teachers should have.
And this digital competence framework also addresses online bullying, harassment and emphasize safe and responsive behavior.
It supports this work.
Then there was a question about the resources for research.
Do Finland has a freedom of science, that means that the researchers and the scientific community have the right to conduct research, teach and disseminate research based information without undue external interference.
The key principle safeguard legislation and the Constitution guarantees the freedom of the highest education and science and central government measures support the preconditions for conducting discrimination, racism, and equality related research, primarily for funding and maintaining national research data.
On discrimination, racism, and equality.
And then I asked there was earlier on a question about the researchers that could be harassed due to when they present their research in public, that the committee for public information has prepared recommendations for the research community aimed at protecting researchers and experts from harassment and pressure and also I want to remind that the research organization as employers have the statutory responsibility to protect employees in this matter as well.
I have a feeling that I forgot something, but I'll come back to that.
Continue.
There was a question about the access to education and jobs for vulnerable groups and also the language learning.
Regarding this, I could tell that we have strong public employment services as well as integration services in Finland.
The responsibility for organizing both employment and integration services were transferred in from the government to the municipalities in 2025 and since this reform, we've been able to a adapt the services more closely to local labor market needs and also provide opportunities to develop tailored pathways into employment for different groups of job seekers, including persons with immigrant backgrounds.
Regarding the integration services that are intended for people that have moved to Finland, we have an Integration Act that gives people right to services to support the language learning, and to support their possibility to get employed.
The integration services, as I mentioned, are organized by the municipalities and the municipal employment services.
A part of this on top of this sort of Integration Act, the legal framework, we also have a policy document, the government Integration Program, which contains 32 different measures designed to strengthen labor market participation, language acquisition, social inclusion, and integration outcomes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have some information on questions that were asked from us earlier today, for example, on what has happened with the cases brought to the non discrimination ombudsman and the Tribunal.
Regarding the tribunal, I need to get back to you tomorrow, but when it comes to the non discrimination ombudsman, I can tell you that in 2025, They a total number of contacts was 2,746.
87% of these contacts, that is 2550 related to discrimination and equality.
The number of contacts related to discrimination and equality have more than doubled during the last five years.
All persons who contact the ombudsman get a review of their case, including a legal review and the answers provided by the Office of the ombudsman often include recommendations for further action.
The vast majority of cases are conducted in this way.
Ombudsman yearly facilitates approximately 15 to 20 formal settlement agreements between parties, and the ombudsman gives approximately 30 to 40 recent opinions to courts of law and prosecutors in individual cases concerning discrimination on a yearly basis.
Yearly, the ombudsman takes a handful of cases of principal importance to either the tribunal or other courts of law.
In the report to Parliament from the ombudsman There is some information also on what has happened in the cases where they have given statements to courts and applications to the tribunal.
Thank you.
Thank you on the criminalization of hate speech.
As I mentioned, the Criminal Code includes multiple provisions that are relevant with regard to hate speech, not only agitation against the population group, but also incitement to commit a crime or defamation or illegal threat can be irrelevant and there is legislative project ongoing related to the EU framework decision on racism and xenophobia.
But as the legislative project is still ongoing, unfortunately, I cannot comment on its contents more than that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for all these replies to the questions raised on the floor.
I still have 5 minutes to spare.
Madam Mint, any follow up questions, please? Actually, I was thinking that all the reports say that hate speech and hate crime has increased since 2015.
Any research done why it happens? Why it has increased? What is the reason behind that? Did it change over the time? I mean in type of hate speech or hate crime.
Does the population who are more affected by this hate speech and hate crime change also over time? I don't know if there's such study has been done or such research has been done, but I think it's important to understand why it's happening and how and who.
Thank you.
Yes, let's make it into an interactive discussion.
Would you answer to this? Well, as such, we don't have such research or I don't actually know.
Do you know that we have some long term research on this issue? Well, I think it has also something to do with demographics of Finland and the geography of Finland because we have a very big majority of ethnic minorities live in bigger cities, and then we have the rural areas where There are no or very few immigrants and this has caused also differences in attitudes because people don't have interaction with people with other backgrounds.
I think and lots of Finland is rural area actually.
But um I must say, regarding every survey data that we have, actually, the Finnish people, they show very strong support to human rights and also anti racist action.
So it's quite contradictory also for us.
We have the fundamental rights barometer where almost 80% of the respondents say that it's very important to promote human rights, and so Yeah, that's data that we have.
As well, I don't know.
Maybe some other colleagues would like to continue on this, but the global situation also affects Finland.
The movements that we have affect Finland.
Yes.
Thank you.
If I may just mention one Finnish journalist followed social media and identified there certain persons or names who were very aggressive, a lot of hate speech and very aggressive comments, and he actually took contact with these persons.
And when they were having telephone conversation, real interaction, majority of these people said that, yes, I know it was stupid comment and they couldn't actually explain why they were posting something like that.
But when you have to interact with people, would people say those issues out loud, but because you have social media and you can sometimes be very anonymous there.
So it makes this kind of posting much easier.
Some people follow other people.
It's very unfortunate, but this is definitely something we need to research more in Finland.
But I think that it was very interesting that when you are contacted really by a person and addressing this issue, they were regretting that it wasn't a wise thing to post it.
Any other follow up questions? Members, Monsieur Derby.
Short one, please.
Bar Earlier, I raised hate speech in sports, notably in football and ice hockey.
Is there anything that you can comment on that in the cases that have arisen? Thank you.
Tomorrow if I check with my colleagues who work with sports as I do only education.
Thank you.
Of course.
Also just to remind the delegation that after we finish this process, we will give you 48 hours still to submit any kind of information in written form so that they will provide us with a basis to draft our complete observations.
Okay.
I don't see anybody else asking for the floor.
Let me take it myself to fill in in the place of our follow up rapporteur, Madame cul, who unfortunately had to leave early for a private matter, first of all, remind the delegation that as you know, the last concluding observations on Finland were adopted in May 2017.
In that, it's paragraph 31, the committee had requested Finland to provide information within one year of the adoption of these concluding observations on its follow up to the recommendations contained in paragraphs 19 on Sami languages and 25 on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
Now, we'll deal with these tomorrow.
So I'm not going to enter into this.
Let me just thank the state party for being very punctual in submitting the follow up interim report right on time in one year.
And we will have more to discuss about that tomorrow.
With that, I think we can close this meeting and to come back tomorrow Four, the remaining themes are in segments three and four.
Segment three is about the situation of Sami, Roma, and other groups, including people of African descent, and Segment four, the situation of non citizens, including migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
With that, I wish you a very good evening and I declare the 3237th meeting of third closed.
See you tomorrow.
Thank you.
Thank you.