Helsinki residents no longer so shocked by - or so sympathetic towards - begging in the streets

Finnish capital already has more than 200 migrant Roma panhandlers; their earnings are falling as public attitudes harden

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By Janne Toivonen
     
      Daniel Aleman, a Roma from Romania, says that today the Helsinki residents’ favourite call to the beggars they encounter on the street is:”Go Romania!”
      It is no sporting shout of encouragement; it just means that the Roma should go back to where they came from.
     
”Many people seem to hate us. I have even been spat at. Nothing like this happened last year”, Aleman says.
      A passer-by joins the discussion with some vigour:
      ”Why don’t you go somewhere else? You just bring more crime here”, says entrepreneur Svetlana Leskinen-Kajamäki with feeling. She has lived in Finland for 25 years.
      Our interpreter translates to Aleman what she said, and Aleman defends himself.
     
”I did not come here in search of wealth and I do not want to receive any social security benefits. But in Romania we do not have anything to live on. In the European Union people are free to move to another EU country and to look for livelihood”, Aleman argues.
      ”But why was Romania admitted to the EU? This kind of activity does not belong in Europe”, Leskinen-Kajamäki continues.
     
This summer, the number of beggars will be higher than ever before in Finland.
      The current number of panhandlers out on the streets of Helsinki is slightly over 200, estimates Jarmo Räihä, a leading expert at Helsinki’s Social Services Department.
      In general, beggars move in the same places as other people. In the space of a few blocks radius from Helsinki’s Central Railway Station, some 10 to15 beggars can be seen sitting on the ground.
      We are interviewing six beggars with the help of our interpreter. They all say that their earnings are now 10 to 15 euros a day, while still last year they earned around EUR 20 to 25 per day. Some of them say that they collect only 6 to 7 euros in a day, in other words one euro per hour.
      ”
People no longer give us money. They regard us as thieves. Drunks sometimes kick down our cups”, complain Rozalia and Maria Sandu, who are incidentally not in Finland for the first time.
      ”Why the f**k are you molly-coddling those people! They come here just as long as you give them money”, shouts a passer-by with a neck tattoo.
      This spring and summer’s trend appears to be begging and empty returnable bottle collecting in festivals.
      For example, at the traditionally rather liquid spring festival Vappu (May Eve and May Day) the beggars’ earnings were hefty.
      ”Do you know of any festivals this week? They could be even 300 to 400 kilometres away from Helsinki. We can arrange a trip by a van, for which we will naturally have to pay”, say Kamelia Caldarary and her husband Vasile, who are sitting on the grass adjoining the Ateneum Art Museum.
      When Kamelia collected bottles at a festival in Turku last summer, she earned a hundred euros during a weekend.
     
”Or if you know of a place where we could buy a car with which we could go to festivals, and maybe later drive back to Romania”, they ask.
      The couple say that they sleep in a car.
      Why do they not use the vehicle to go to festivals?
      ”Vasile bought it for 50 euros to give us shelter. It does not have an engine”, Kamelia replies.
      The two continue their lunch: ready-made meatballs and toast directly form the bag.
     
In the district of Itäkeskus, in Eastern Helsinki, Daniel Aleman is standing at the entrance of the shopping centre on one foot, supported by a pair of crutches.
      ”A car accident six years ago”, Daniel answers when asked about the amputation of one of his legs.
      Aleman is not one of those crippled or ”crippled” people who are carried by criminal gangs from Romania to Southern Europe to beg for pity.
      Authorities have suspected that the same phenomenon might arrive in Finland, too.
     
Aleman came to Finland a year ago from Metz, a city in the northeast of France.
      All Roma beggars were offered by French authorities a flight ticket back home and EUR 300 in return for not coming back. However, Aleman left for Finland, following his wife.
      His wife Virginia Moldovan turns up. She is also a veteran here, and this is her fourth summer in Finland.
      ”Last year we were not insulted nor spat on. People here no longer believe in God”, she says with regret.
     
In any case, the question: ”Why are you cosseting those people!” is good. Should we cosset beggars or should we not, that is a question to be considered in the next few days.
     
The Ministry of the Interior is to set up a working group to consider the possibility of a ban on begging in Finland.
      The working group will include representatives from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Finnish Immigration Service, the National Police Board, the City of Helsinki, and the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities.
     
Another line of discussion has also been opened in Finland.
      A Helsinki resident and Member of Parliament Juha Hakola (National Coalition) has proposed that the Public Order Act of 2003 should be amended so that begging would be forbidden.
      The related bill is to be brought before Parliament this week.
     
Under current legislation, begging is not illegal in this country.
      Neither can municipalities set bans of their own on begging.
      Police can intervene only if begging causes a public disturbance.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.5.2010
     
     
The article above is the first in a five-part Helsingin Sanomat series on the everyday lives of the migrant Romanian Roma holding their cups out in the streets of Helsinki, just as the authorities are planning amendments to public order legislation that would make such begging illegal.
      The subject of Helsinki's migrant Roma panhandlers has been examined many times in these pages since they first began to arrive in 2007, shortly after the gates were opened by the accession into the European Union of Romania and Bulgaria.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Amnesty: EU violates human rights of Roma beggars (12.5.2010)
  Interior Minister considers outright ban on begging (5.5.2010)
  Beggars on their knees cause consternation on Helsinki streets (23.10.2007)

See also:
  Finnish Roma and Ministry of Interior knew of influx of Central European beggars in advance (10.1.2008)
  Roma beggars removed from illegal makeshift camp (28.10.2009)
  Ban on begging to be looked into speedily (25.5.2010)

JANNE TOIVONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
janne.toivonen@hs.fi