EU survey: Half of Somali immigrants regard discrimination as widespread in Finland

One in three Somalis has encountered racist crime in the past 12 months

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According to a recent survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), one in three Somalis in the Greater Helsinki area reports that he or she has been a victim of racially motivated crimes in the course of the past 12 months.
     
Of all the groups surveyed by the FRA, Finland’s Somali immigrants reported the second-highest levels of racist crime.
      The survey involved 45 selected ethnic minority and immigrant groups in all member-states of the European Union.
      The crimes covered by the survey included for example thefts and serious harassment.
      In some sections of the survey, Finland’s Somalis were among those ten minority groups who had personally experienced the highest levels of discrimination.
      Roma minorities in Eastern Europe and Africans in various countries reported the highest levels of discrimination.
      When it comes to treatment at a bank or a shop, Finland’s Somalis emerged among the groups most discriminated against.
      However, compared with other countries’ minorities the Finnish Somalis were more informed of competent authorities who could give them support or advice. Yet some 69 per cent of the interviewed Finnish Somalis said that they did not know of any organisation that could offer support services to victims of discrimination.
     
Half of the Finnish Somali respondents think that discrimination is widespread in the country, while half or other ethnic minorities regarded discrimination as even more common.
      A total of 23,500 persons of ethnic minority or immigrant background were interviewed for the survey in all member-states of the Euroopean Union in 2008. In Finland, 484 immigrants of Somali origin and 562 immigrants of Russian background were interviewed in the Greater Helsinki area.
     
In its report, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights acknowledges that because of the large differences between the interviewed groups, the results of the survey on immigrant and ethnic minority groups’ experiences of discrimination and racist crime should be interpreted with some caution.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Halonen and Ahtisaari differ slightly on immigration (18.3.2009)
  Rural residents and blue-collar workers most negative toward immigration (17.3.2009)
  Few parties put emphasis on immigration policy (12.1.2009)
  Rami Sipilä does not like Somalis (17.2.2009)
  One in four marriages in Helsinki involve at least one foreigner (9.2.2009)
  International Organization for Migration denies having taken stand on deportation of Somalis (28.1.2009)

Links:
  The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) press release 22.4.2009: EU survey of minorities and immigrants sheds new light on extent of racism in EU

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