Social Services Department to take action on children accompanying Helsinki beggars
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By Kimmo Oksanen
The City of Helsinki Social Services Department intends to keep a closer eye on visitors from Eastern Europe begging on the streets of the capital.
Among those put on the watch list are a Romanian family who have kept their 2-year-old child with them while out pan-handling.
In an article published on Sunday, Helsingin Sanomat wrote of the Moldovan family. Through an interpreter, the family's grandmother reported that the 2-year-old had spent the previous days and nights out of doors.
According to Raili Metsälä, who heads the family services unit at Social Services, this is not acceptable at all.
"If a child is out with his or her parents in warmer weather, we take exactly the same view of the matter as we would with Finnish children, in that we are not in a position to intervene. But now winter is approaching, and if a child is out under the stars all night, we are going to take steps to put a stop to it", Metsälä said on Monday.
"If a child has to sleep all night outside, we cannot let this happen here."
The local public has taken a starkly negative stand on people begging for alms with doe-eyed children in tow, for instance in the responses to threads in the discussion boards of Helsingin Sanomat.
On Monday Metsälä promised that the case featured in the newspaper would be taken up by the child welfare field office without delay.
"Naturally we have to discuss the subject with the parents. It is possible we may have to find a roof over the heads of the entire family", said Metsälä.
She went on to point out that not all the families who have come to Helsinki in search of alms have remained in this exposed position. Some have shown up at official desks asking for help.
"In some cases we already have notes and documentation on them. Some families, on the other hand, do not seem to want to seek assistance."
Most of the mendicants who have become part of the Helsinki city scene are from the newer countries of the European Union, and as EU citizens they have a perfect right to spend up to three months in another member-state without any obligations.
When Bulgaria and Romania joined in January 2007, the gates to places like Finland opened up to them.
After three months in the country, it is necessary to register, but as police point out, it is very difficult to ascertain exactly how long the individuals have been here, as there is generally no paper trail left at the point of entry at the border.
The authorities are also stymied in their efforts to keep up with the beggars by the mobility of the individuals, who move around in Finland and across Europe in general. Equally, officials question whether they should be keeping tabs on these people in the first place, provided that they behave themselves.
In order for them to be deported, they would need to be found to be vagrants or would have to have committed some relatively serious offences, says Chief Inspector Hannu Pietilä of the Helsinki Immigration Police.
Breaches of the Public Order Act or minor money collecting offences would not be sufficient to trigger such a decision.
Besides, in the case that an EU citizen reports he or she is seeking work, then the "reasonable period for seeking employment" can stretch to as much as six months without much trouble.
In the case of the Moldovan family, for instance, family members told Helsingin Sanomat that they were looking to find work in Finland.
Helsingin Sanomat / Edited from an article first published in print on 23.10.2007
More on this subject:
 Beggars on their knees cause consternation on Helsinki streets
Police equally stumped by panhandlers
KIMMO OKSANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kimmo.oksanen@hs.fi
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