Eliminating racism from Finland is a matter for us all

It’s sad that experiences of racism are more common in Finland than in many other EU countries on average. Intervening in the situation is vital – in legislation, families and in workplaces as well. There must be a significant, systematic increase in labour immigration because the number of children in Finland is decreasing and large amounts of people are retiring, for instance in the social welfare and health care sector.

At the end of October 2023, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights published a report, and I would not have wanted to see Finland in the top position in the statistics presented. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights investigated racism and discrimination targeting those with an African background in 13 Member States.

In Finland, 43 per cent of those with an African background who were interviewed reported that they had experienced racial harassment during the past year. This is a larger amount than in any other country investigated.

Out of those who were interviewed, 52% had experienced racial harassment in Finland during the past five years. Those with an African background mostly experience discrimination when looking for work, at work, and when trying to find an apartment. Why does the world’s happiest country feel the need to push others down?

The racism controversies that surrounded Petteri Orpo’s Government in spring and summer 2023 are a testament to the fact that not even the Finnish Parliament is free from racism. All of us are needed to get rid of racism, and it requires concrete measures. It’s simply not enough to condemn racism in speeches. Eliminating it requires active measures in each field of society, and from every member of society.

Anti-racist social conditioning must start already in early childhood, and those working within early childhood education and care play a large role in this matter. Schools must unlearn racialising student councelling. Anonymous recruitment must be promoted in the labour market. That’s when jobseekers who lack a typical Finnish name have a fairer chance to get ahead in the job-seeking process with the help of their merits, and the process doesn’t come to a halt at the very beginning.

Language skills criteria should be re-examined in many sectors. A perfect grasp of Finnish is not needed in every single job. Hate speech must be strictly curbed, regardless of who the speaker is – the speaker of the Finnish Parliament, a minister, a member of Parliament or a regular person.

Employers play a central part in eliminating racism from the labour market. The fact of the matter is that Finland will be needing more and more labour from other countries during the upcoming years. During the past few decades, the number of children being born in Finland has been (and still is) far too low for us to deal with our challenging dependency ratio. In addition, many young employees sadly leave the labour market early for mental health reasons, if a young person even manages to enter the labour market in the first place. Finland’s reputation as a racist country is not suitable for attracting competent people from elsewhere, especially when they face wet snow, coldness and a language that’s difficult to learn. That’s why we must take active measures to eliminate racism.

When one of the most common forms of ethnic racism in working life is discrimination when hiring, employers should take a long look at themselves in the mirror. If a person with an immigrant origin, or someone who looks or sounds like a immigrant, looks for work but the job-hunting comes to a halt before it even gets started properly, it’s not enough that interest groups condemn racism.

Workplaces still have a lot to do when it comes to promoting diversity. Everyone should get to be themselves at work. Only a work community where everyone feels good regardless of their, say, ethnic background, state of health, religion or sexual orientation, is healthy and thus productive. A good work community is led by example. The attitude that top management has towards diversity, the kind of language it uses when talking about minorities, and whether people who don’t look like native-born Finns are hired in a workplace, have a lot of significance. Furthermore, supervisors and personnel representatives need a lot of training on diversity and leading it.

Our political decision makers have a key role when it comes to eliminating racism. If those with the highest decision-making power show a bad example by having a degrading attitude towards immigrants, it’s difficult to demand that others behave any better.

We have to work against racism every day, not just on theme days. Finland must be a good country to live in for everyone here – for native-born Finns and those who have moved here from somewhere else!