Finnish Roma and Ministry of Interior knew of influx of Central European beggars in advance

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"This comes as no surprise. We knew to expect something like this" says Sarita Friman-Korpela, Secretary of RONK, the Advisory Board on Romani Affairs in Finland.
      She is commenting on the question of the Roma from Eastern Europe who have take up positions on the streets of Helsinki with begging bowls in front of them.
      "The Roma in Romania and Bulgaria are living in abject poverty. Years ago we said that if nothing is done about their conditions, as soon as the borders are opened [via EU membership], something like this will happen."
     
The Advisory Board on Romani Affairs in Finland will be discussing the beggars at the beginning of February, when the board will meet for the first time under its new membership.
      Nevertheless, Friman-Korpela says that on the individual level, the finnish Roma have already had plenty to say about the mendicants, who have been causing consternation among Helsinki residents and a certain amount of frustration for the authorities. The Roma have had identical concerns.
      "The biggest worry is the children. when the beggars are inside Finland, they should treat their children just as everyone else does here", says Friman-Korpela.
     
On Wednesday, Helsingin Sanomat was again contacted on a couple of occasions by members of the public who had seen a clearly heavily preganant beggar in the centre of the Finnish capital. In the autumn the city's Social Services Department stepped in over a case in which a child was obliged to sleep rough outside at night.
      According to Sarita Friman-Korpela, some of the Finnish Roma population take a sympathetic view of the East European arrivals, while others fear that they will inevitably reinforce the mainstream Finnish population's prejudices and stereotypes towards Roma in general.
      "The Finnish Roma and the beggars are two quite separate issues. They do not even have a common language", she says.
     
"The first thing that should be done would be to determine what their intentions are. If they really want to settle here, get a home and a job, then they should immediately get in touch with local Roma organisations, for instance with a view to learning the language", says Friman-Korpela.
     
At the Ministry of the Interior, the Police Department is currently preparing guidelines for officials on how to deal uniformly with the pan-handlers. The ministry, too, knew of the impending influx from Eastern Europe.
      "This is one of the knock-on effects of the free movement of people under the EU system", observes Esko Ruokonen from the Ministry of the Interior.
      The ministry has started work on the guidelines by initially discussing the matter with the Helsinki Police Department, but according to Ruokonen, belief in the appearance of a set of rules to live by has faded in the past few months. Ruokonen is equally sceptical about the sense of drafting any specific laws on the subject.
      The fact that there have been signs that the begging is organised is one aspect that has caused particular concern. "If people are being forced by someone to go out into the cold streets and down on their knees with a begging-bowl, we might be getting close to something like human trafficking", comments Ruokonen.
      Whilst the whole matter has been troublesome for the local population, while the beggars are not actually committing any form of crime under Finnish legislation, there is little that anyone can do about it.
      About the only response is to withhold alms. As Pertti Visunen of the Ministry of the Interior's Immigration Department observed, "If the Finns stopped giving to them, they would stop coming."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Majority of residents in Helsinki region want to ban begging (7.1.2008)
  Helsinki police find stolen goods in van used by Romanian beggars (19.11.2007)

Links:
  Advisory Board on Romani affairs

Helsingin Sanomat