Moniheli was honoured to be invited to an oral hearing at the Prime Minister's Office on Thursday morning 10.8. The topic of the hearing was the future of the Equal Finland Action Programme and the measures that could be taken to promote equality in the coming government term. The event was attended by Abdirahim Hussein, Executive Director, and Raakel Kumpunen, Communications Manager, on behalf of the Moniheli network.
On the basis of the hearing, a memorandum is drawn up for the government and presented to Parliament at the beginning of the session. This memorandum is the response of Petteri Orpo's government to the recurring racism scandals that the new government has been facing as a result of the inappropriate behaviour of its ministers and previous writings that have come to the public's attention. The memo was decreed shortly after Finance Minister Riikka Purra's openly racist Scripta writings were made public.
The memorandum, in the preparation of which Moniheli is involved, is a tool for measuring the reliability of the government. When a memorandum is presented to Parliament, Parliament has the opportunity to vote on the confidence of the government or a minister. If the government does not gain the confidence of Parliament, it is forced to resign.
Contents of Moniheli's statement
The content of Moniheli's statement at the hearing is along the same lines as our comment on the government programme published in June. You can read our comment here.
The main message of the statement is that the government programme does not support equality, but rather hinders it. This is due to the serious contradictions between its objectives and its means.
The government programme threatens equality in a number of ways, including:
- The integration process puts the responsibility for the process on the immigrant without providing them with the tools they need to integrate. Instead of help, threats and sanctions are offered. This leaves them in a vulnerable position, in need of support and services from the third sector.
- Structural racism and recruitment discrimination, which hamper the employment of immigrants, are not addressed at all in the government programme. Instead, the responsibility for employment is also left to the immigrant. By suggesting that a migrant's employment is only a matter of lack of language skills, the huge problem with the system is ignored.
- The government programme repeatedly emphasises the implementation of preventive activities through stronger cooperation between the public and third sectors. The workload of the third sector is therefore being increased significantly, while the resources needed for this work are being cut and the scope for action by organisations is being paralysed. This seriously jeopardises the equal access of vulnerable groups of clients to public services.
After our short presentation, the group preparing the memorandum had the opportunity to ask questions.
Further discussion at the hearing
Moniheli was praised for the clarity and concreteness of our statement. The follow-up questions addressed effective further measures to promote equality and specific sectors where equality expertise is particularly important. In our responses, we described the importance of good demographic relations and representation in public services and in the fight against racism.
Good practices we highlighted included funding for third sector anti-racism activities, equality work in schools, and our work with the Police Academy on police diversity. We also stressed the importance of culturally sensitive skills in service guidance. This comes up, for example, when considering user trust in the service provider, and is therefore reflected in the take-up of services.
