CONSTRUCTING A MONITORING AND REPORTING SYSTEM ON DISCRIMINATION - THE CASE OF FINLAND

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1 CONSTRUCTING A MONITORING AND REPORTING SYSTEM ON DISCRIMINATION - THE CASE OF FINLAND Dr Simo MANNILA Finland simo.mannila@stakes.com simo.mannila@luukku.com 1. Background Finland transposed the Racial Equality Directive and the Employment Equality Directive into the national legislation mainly by means of the Non-Discrimination Act, which became effective as of 1 February Discrimination is traditionally prohibited also elsewhere in the domestic legislation, including the Constitution and the Penal Code. It was soon realized that action was needed to come to grips with the growing information needs related to anti-discrimination. In recognition of this fact Finland participated actively in the development of discrimination indicators in the EU, by chairing the EU Data Collection Working Group to Measure the Extent and Impact of Discrimination in and by organizing the EU Conference Data to Promote Equality in In 2005, the Ministry of Labour launched a project, called Making Equality a Reality with Adequate Data (MERA). MERA-project had two strands: First, the preparation of a European Handbook on Equality Data 1, and second, the preparation of a proposal for a national monitoring and reporting system on discrimination for Finland across all the discrimination grounds covered by the two EU directives. The project was funded jointly by the European Commission (European Community Action Programme to combat discrimination) and the Finnish Ministry of Labour together with the Finnish Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Labour established a National Reference Group to develop the national action plan for monitoring and reporting discrimination based on all grounds. This paper describes the development and main outlines of the national proposal for monitoring discrimination in Finland. 1 Makkonen T (2006) European handbook on equality data. European Commission Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Luxembourg. 1

2 2. Finnish context Some characteristics of the Finnish history and society bear an impact on the proposal prepared. These include: there are two national languages, Finnish and Swedish, plus some minority or regional languages with an official status such as Roma and Saami; there are two national religions, Lutheran Protestant and Orthodox, which have a special relationship with the state; others are insignificant minorities; Swedish-speaking population as well as those with Orthodox belief constitute a minority only by their share in the population, they enjoy a special status and not comparable to any other minority groups in Finland; genuine ethnic minorities consist of traditional ones such as Roma, Saami, Jews and Tartars and new ones established due to rather recent immigration - all ethnic minorities are small, and their situation cannot be captured by mainstream statistical surveys; Finland does not gather census data due to very developed population and other registers, which can in certain cases be linked; immigration is a new phenomenon in Finland and it attracts a great deal of public interest and there has been extensive research activity concerning new immigrants (cf. the very limited knowledge of Roma people); typically of all Scandinavian societies, Finland lays a strong emphasis on gender equality, and very strong structures have been created to promote it - in the proposal gender has been a cross-cutting issue; due to the modern approach to disability and peculiarities of Finnish language disability is focused in very different ways when we speak e.g. about persons with disabilities in the labour market, various types of benefits and accessibility of society: 2

3 this makes the measurement of disability-related issues incl. discrimination a complex issue where several indicators of disability must be used in parallel 2 ; there has been an increasing research interest in ageing, and various policies for the maintenance of work ability of ageing people as well as for services for the elderly have been developed during the past decades in Finland 3, but there is little focus on the problems of discrimination based on age yet; increasing awareness concerning various sexual orientations and minorities in Finnish society and some research exists; there is traditionally a strong focus on combat against social exclusion and for social inclusion, extensive research into related issues, but an explicit focus on discrimination is rather new in Finland. 3. The organization of monitoring on discrimination in Finland The proposal developed allocates the coordination of data collection, monitoring and reporting on discrimination in the Ministry of Labour and recommended the establishment of a permanent Reference Group to support this work. Members of the Reference Group consist of representatives of e.g. Ministry of Labour Ministry of Interior (immigration and police) Ministry of Social Affairs and Health Ministry of Education Ministry of Justice Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ombudsman for Data Protection Ombudsman for Minority Issues Research Institute for Legal Policy Research and Development Institute for Welfare and Health National Advisory Board on Romani Affairs Issues 2 Mannila S & Järvikoski A (2005, eds) Disability and Working Life. Rehabilitation Foundation, Working Papers. Helsinki. 3 Ilmarinen J (2006) Towards a Longer Worklife! Ageing and the quality of work life in the European Union. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki. 3

4 National Council on Disability Pensioners NGOs National NGO for sexual minorities The reporting should consist of two components: a permanent part consisting of statistics, some complaints data and other information from pre-defined sources, and an ad hoc part addressing most urgent data needs as defined by the Reference Group for each reporting period separately. Strong emphasis is placed on the ad hoc part of the reporting. This is because of three main reasons: The target groups (with the exception of different age groups) are rather small, and cannot therefore be reached, in representative numbers, by means of sample surveys targeting the general population. The discrimination grounds are very different from each other and they require differentiated approaches for various reasons. The register data does not include the necessary variables that are needed in order to directly assess the situation of the equality groups (again with the exception of different age groups). We plan to report on an ongoing basis with the help of a web-site to be established. A summary of findings should be compiled yearly on the basis of the information accumulated, and a major report should be prepared once in four years. This report will have significant visibility and will be discussed by the Government of Finland. The reporting functions should be tendered among competent researchers and research bodies in Finland. The League of Human Rights in Finland has already published several yearly reports on racism and ethnic discrimination in Finland 4. It is presently preparing, on commission by the Finnish Ministry of Labour, a report on discrimination in Finland, with an additional focus on age, disability and sexual orientation as discrimination grounds. The report is based on secondary material from various sources. This arrangement is a step towards establishing a comprehensive system of discrimination monitoring in Finland. 4 e.g. Salonen A-M & Villa S (2006) Rasismi ja etninen syrjintä Suomessa. (Racism and ethnic discrimination in Finland). League of Human Rights in Finland, Helsinki. 4

5 The proposal for the monitoring and reporting system on discrimination in Finland was approved by the National Reference Group in November The proposal was published in Finnish, Swedish and English by the Ministry of Labour in The Reference Group has been established and it had the first meeting in April A draft action plan for the implementation of this proposal by the Ministry of Labour and the establishment of the National Reference Group for the next four-years Government term ( ) has been made. The system would be fully operative by Nevertheless, there will be a major restructuring process of public administration in Finland during the Government period of , and the ownership of the discrimination monitoring, i.e. which ministry will take the lead, is not completely clear. 4. The substantial contents of the proposal The national proposal prepared for Finland is divided into two parts, the first one is of general nature and relevant to several or all discrimination grounds, while the second one is groundspecific. The key elements of the proposal are as follows. (1) Emphasis on research, particularly victim surveys but also living condition surveys that have an emphasis on discrimination. Some victim surveys targeted to ethnic minorities (one covering the whole country, two covering Greater Helsinki Region) have been carried out 6, and some studies address social exclusion risks and discrimination with the same data sets sometimes trying to develop a synthesis approach 78. In addition to victim and living conditions surveys the proposal outlines three topics for future research: A quantitative analysis of how reports of racism and ethnic discrimination are processed within the different stages of the criminal justice system; A study on the living conditions of the Finnish Roma and A study on the accessibility in the Finnish society (related to discrimination based on disability) 5 Mannila S (2007) Syrjinnän seuranta Suomessa. Uppföljning av diskriminering i Finland. Monitoring of discrimination in Finland. Finnish Ministry of Labour, Publications 374. Helsinki. 6 e.g. Jasinskaja-Lahti, Liebkind K & Vesala T (2002) Rasismi ja syrjintä Suomessa. Maahanmuuttajien kokemuksia. (Racism and discrimination in Finland. Immigrants experience). Gaudeamus, Helsinki. 7 Liebkind K, Mannila S, Jasinskaja-Lahti I, Jaakkola M, Kyntäjä E, Reuter A (2004) Venäläinen, virolainen, suomalainen. Kolmen maahanmuuttajaryhmän sopeutuminen Suomeen. (Russian, Estonian, Finnish. The integration of three immigrant groups in Finland). Gaudeamus, Helsinki. 8 Pohjanpää K, Paananen S & Nieminen M (2003) Maahanmuuttajien elinolot. Venäläisten, virolaisten, somalialaisten ja vietnamilaisten elämää Suomessa. (Immigrants living conditions. Russian, Estonian, Somali and Vietnamese immigrants in Finland). Elinolot 2003: 1. Statistics Finland, Helsinki. 5

6 (2) Funding for attitude surveys that target the general population and address all discrimination grounds at once. - Several surveys of attitudes towards immigrants have been carried out 9. (3) Development of the national police registers to include more systematic information concerning discrimination and all hate crimes independently of the discrimination ground. (4) Integration of discrimination as a theme in the research programmes of Finnish ministries responsible for anti-discrimination policy. All Finnish ministries carry out or fund extensive research activities, which could bring a great deal of new information on discrimination and anti-discrimination policies by small readjustments. (5) Further development of two Finnish (not coordinated by Eurostat) surveys of Statistics Finland, Quality of Work Life Survey 10 (n = over 3 000) and Working Life Barometer 11 (n = 1 200, yearly data) which already contain direct discrimination indicators. (6) Recommendation of the use of some statistical data sets for indirect measurement of discrimination. These include e.g. development of the collection and reporting of statistics on education and training (applications to and students of educational institutions; discontinuation of education; adult education; special education) continuation of a crossstatistical compilation of statistics on the social situation of the elderly; further development of a register-based database on immigrants in Finland 12 ; development of the client registers of employment service and their reporting for a better analysis of situation of young and elderly jobseekers, persons with disabilities and ethnic minorities in the labour market; and an analysis of ethnic minorities in social, health and housing services based on municipal data and statistics. (7) Support the extension of the focus of the employer- or workplace related equality plans to cover all discrimination grounds in addition to the present minimum requirement of ethnic origin. A separate project to disseminate good practice can be recommended - a web-page and a great deal of information materials already exist. 9 Jaakkola M (2005) Suomalaisten suhtautuminen maahanmuuttajiin vuosina (Finnish attitudes towards immigrants in ). Työpoliittinen tutkimus 286. Finnish Ministry of Labour, Helsinki Lehto A-M Sutela (2004) Uhkia ja mahdollisuuksia. Työolotutkimuksen tuloksia (Threats and chances. Results from Quality of Work Life Survey in ). Statistics Finland, Helsinki Statistics Finland (2006) Ulkomaalaiset ja siirtolaisuus. (Foreigners and immigration). Väestö11/ Helsinki. 6

7 (8) Support the adoption of workplace vs. diversity monitoring by means of a separate project on the basis of already existing Finnish 13 and international experience. Workplace monitoring can be carried out also in cooperation by employers (possibly: employers associations) and trade unions, if so agreed. (9) Support self-reporting of discrimination experiences on the basis of an internet-based form used by the Finnish League for Human Rights, with careful attention to the requirements of privacy and data protection. (10) Language and religion as discrimination grounds are not addressed in detail in the proposal. We see that these two grounds are presently closely related to ethnic origin, and focusing on the status of minority languages and religions in educational institutions within the framework of national legislation would be adequate at this phase of the development. If necessary, the proposal can later on be supplemented by materials addressing these two grounds. (11) The NGO sector will be integrated in the administration and implementation of data collection, monitoring and reporting of discrimination. Also the reports and documents of the national advisory bodies (e.g. Advisory Board on Romani Affairs and National Council on Disability) as well as the documents of the Saami Parliament will be taken into account. (12) The decisions, statements and yearly reports of the different parts of the justice system (Supreme Court, Supreme Administrative Court, Ombudsman for Minorities, Chancellor of Justice, Ombudsman of the Finnish Parliament) constitute one key source in discrimination reporting