Amnesty censures Finland’s asylum policy

Amnesty International on Thursday published its annual report for 2017/18 in which the human rights watchdog criticised Finland’s asylum policy, saying that in 2017 changes to the country’s asylum procedure continued to affect the asylum-seekers negatively.

The report also says that support services for the women who were victims of domestic violence remained inadequate, while legislation on legal gender recognition continued to violate the rights of transgender people.

“Many changes in the law introduced in 2016, including restrictions of the right to free legal representation and reduced timeframes for appeals, continued to affect refugees’ and asylum-seekers’ rights,” reads the report. According to Amnesty International, the likelihood of asylum-seekers being forcibly returned to countries where they might be at risk of human rights violations (refoulement) was increased in last year.

The report says the government had not evaluated the combined impact of these changes by the end of the year.

“Family reunification remained difficult for most refugees due to both legislative and practical obstacles, including high income requirements,” reports the global human rights body.

According to it, despite international NGOs raising concern, Finland continued to forcibly return asylum-seekers whose applications were rejected to Afghanistan. Contrary to international standards, the authorities continued to detain unaccompanied children and families with children based on their immigration status.

The report states that “There was no time limit on detaining families with children. In February, ‘directed residence’ was introduced as a new form of deprivation of liberty for asylum-seekers and migrants. It meant that asylum-seekers had to report to a reception centre up to four times a day.”

It says legislation on legal gender recognition continued to violate the rights of transgender people. They could obtain legal gender recognition only if they agreed to sterilisation, were diagnosed with a mental disorder, and were aged over 18.

According to the report, existing legislation did not sufficiently protect institutionalised or hospitalised individuals from sexual violence. In May, the first Sexual Assault Support Centre was opened at the Women’s Hospital in the capital, Helsinki. According to Amnesty International, “Finland still lacked a nationwide, accessible service network for victims of all forms of sexual violence, which could also provide long-term support.”