The content of the Convention can be summarised under three themes: The task of the Ombudsman for Children is to monitor and promote the implementation of the rights of the child in Finland. If you notice that your rights are neglected you can discuss the matter for instance with your parents, teacher, public health nurse, school social worker, or some other reliable adult. The Convention involves four general principles All children are equal.
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The interests of the child are primary in all decision-making. The child is entitled to a good life. The views of the child shall be taken into account. The Convention on the Rights of the Child in brief Every person below the age of 18 years is a child. Every child is entitled to the rights of the child. The State shall implement the rights provided for in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The child has the right to life.
The State shall guarantee to the maximum extent the survival and development of the child at his or her individual pace. The child shall be registered immediately after birth. The child born has the right to a name and nationality. Every child has the right to know and be cared for in the first place by his or her parents. The child has the right to preserve his or her identity, nationality, name and family relations.
As a rule, the child has the right to live with his or her parents if the child feels happy and safe living with them. A child who is separated from his or her parents has the right to meet and maintain regular contacts with both parents. If a child has been separated from his or her parents and they are staying in different states, the State is responsible for dealing with their application for family reunification favourably and without delay. The State shall prevent any illicit transfer of children from one country to another.
The child has the right to express his or her views freely in all matters affecting the child. The view of the child shall be taken into account in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
In order to express his or her views the child has the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas freely, provided that it does not violate the rights of others. The child has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The guidance provided by the parents to the child in the exercise of this right shall be respected. The child has the right to join associations and to participate actively in their activities. The child has the right to privacy, domestic peace and secrecy of correspondence.
No child shall be subjected to attacks on his or her honour or reputation. The child has the right to obtain such information through the mass media that is important for his or her development and well-being. Children shall be protected from information and material injurious to their well-being. The parents have the primary and joint responsibility for the upbringing of the child. They are entitled to obtain support for managing this task. The parents shall act in the best interests of the child. The State shall ensure day care and child welfare services. The child shall be protected from all forms of violence, negligent treatment and abuse.
A child who cannot live with his or her family is entitled to special protection and support. A child can be adopted if it is the best alternative for him or her. A refugee child is entitled to special care needed by him or her. In the strategy, it was proposed that the Ministry of Education and Culture would coordinate the cooperation but obligations were presented to other ministries as well. When implemented, the strategy would improve the state-level communication and engagement in the Convention which has been insufficient in the past.
At the moment, implementation of the NCS is still pending and its future unclear. Some important developments related to future human rights architecture in Finland are currently underway in the Government. However, there is a concern over the very short timetable to prepare an action programme that will lay ground for Finnish human rights policies in The action programme will be updated annually. The Finnish Government should be encouraged to establish human rights focal points in all ministries and create a permanent coordination group for human rights consisting of the focal points of different ministries.
Finland has a relatively good legislation as regards children, their rights and well-being, and new laws to improve the status of children in the society are on their way. However, implementation of legislation in different parts of the country varies considerably. In practice, children and their families, depending on where they live, are placed on an un-equal position in terms of receiving services and support that they are entitled to.
Additionally a national project to restructure municipalities and services is currently underway in the Government. A proposal on a new structure by the Ministry of Interior is about to be finalized by the end of There is a concern over possible negative effects of the project on the service provision for children and their families in the future.
The best interests of the child should be the primary consideration when planning child welfare services and directing funds for their provision in the municipalities. Cross-sectoral approach to child welfare services should also be accompanied with a common, consolidated budget. The Finnish government should ensure sufficient resources to provide services for children and families in all parts of the country. Particular attention should be paid to preventive health care measures for the whole child welfare sector at national and local level.
Finnish National Agency for Education - National certificate of language proficiency (YKI)
Early support provided in day care, schools, child and maternity clinics, just to name few, promotes the well-being of the child and the family, and is more cost-effective for the whole society. To increase the focus, targeted efforts and effective measures eliminating discrimination, and to make further efforts and measures to promote the rights of minorities, inter alia, ethnic minorities.
To strengthen the efforts to restrict any outbreaks of racism and xenophobia, particularly manifestations of racism and discrimination on the Internet, as recommended by CERD. To provide the same coverage in national legislation and anti-discrimination training activities for the grounds of sexual orientation and disability as for other grounds of discrimination, for example in areas such as the provision of services and health care, and to consider using the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity as a guide to assist in its policies development.
The Finnish child welfare NGOs are very concerned about the hardening attitudes of the Finnish society. People seem to be becoming less concerned about issues such as poverty, the disabled and the rights of minorities. Purely racist and xenophobic attitudes are growing and becoming more harsh and acceptable, especially on the Internet. Families may even move to another area in order to get their children to another school.
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The Ombudsman for Children was involved in a research project to chart experiences of discrimination by children, conducted by the University of Eastern Finland and the Ministry of Interior in The outcomes of the survey show that children who are disabled or who have a different skin colour are the most likely to be discriminated against. Discrimination is mostly committed at school by children and adolescents of the same age with whom they are acquainted. Unfamiliar adults may also feel repelled by or take a prejudiced attitude, for instance to Roma children and adolescents or immigrant children.
Particularly worrying is that many children and adolescents feel that discrimination is inevitable. It has been difficult for them or their parents to bring about a change in the situation. It would therefore be crucial to influence the attitudes of all adults and educators towards non-tolerance of discrimination. It has been discovered in other contexts that teachers and hobby instructors of disabled children and adolescents may also have discriminatory attitudes. This applies particularly in cases involving the participation of a minority child in general teaching or leisure pursuits with other children.
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In spite of legislative measures, there is still especially remarkable racism towards the Roma, both, as a group and on an individual level. Discrimination is often indirect and continuous and, along with the problems relating to the often inadequate living conditions of the Roma, this has a strong negative influence on Roma children. National studies indicate that the Roma children and young are also victims of bullying more often than other children. For them, discrimination mostly comprises indifference to their rights, their language and their culture. At the moment racism is not recognized enough and the children and young people who are victims of racism are not getting adequate support.
The Finnish Government is currently preparing new non-discrimination legislation. The Finnish Government should strengthen its efforts to fight against all forms of discrimination, including discrimination against children with disabilities, immigrant and refugee children as well as children from ethnic minorities.
Schools, higher education institutions and NGOs should all extend their work and efforts to change the racist and xenophobic attitudes among young people. Schools should pay closer attention to the bullying of Roma children and young people. It is very important that the new legislation covers all discriminatory grounds and that the level of legal remedies and sanctions are equal in respect of all grounds. The new legislation should lay duties to promote equal treatment also to educational institutions and employers. There are only a few hundred people speaking these languages.
In practice the legislation is not fully implemented in the whole country. NGOs are concerned about the education of Roma children and young people, about their opportunities to find jobs and the weakening of the Roma culture and language. In Finland the Roma children rarely attend day care programs. In school they are often moved to the special education classes, their rate of non-attendance is high and they also drop out of school more frequently than the average. According to the Finnish constitution, the Roma have the right to maintain and develop its own language and culture.
There are provisions concerning the Roma language in the early education legislation, in the education legislation and in the media legislation. In spite of the legislation, the situation of Roma language in practice is very challenging. In order to promote the rights of the Roma children and young people, it is important to lay a focus on supporting their upbringing, education and studying in all growing up and learning environments. In hobbies and other leisure activities the Roma young should be encouraged to participate in activities together with the youth of the mainstream population.
It would be important to train and hire employees with a Roma background. In addition, information on Roma culture and the special needs of Roma children and young people should be provided to all professionals working for and with children. In order for the Roma language to survive, active measures from the Finnish Government are needed. Awareness of Roma culture should also be actively promoted among the public. The rights of Swedish speaking children are not always ensured in practice.
The Swedish speaking minority is the biggest minority in Finland covering ca. The Finnish Language Act is comprehensive and gives every child in Finland the right to receive services in Finnish or Swedish. However, in practice the spirit of the Language Act is not wholly implemented. The Finnish Government must ensure, that every Swedish speaking child has also in practice the right to service in his or her own language.
Different disability groups have different needs. That is often forgotten when policies and services for disabled people are planned. In particular, attention should be paid to special needs of children and young people with intellectual disabilities in their daily environments at home, in school and in spare time. The children and young people with intellectual disabilities need time and special methods to communicate in order to get their voices heard and hence to participate in decision-making concerning them.
Human rights education that starts already in early childhood is an important tool to combat racism and discriminatory attitudes among children and young people. As regards HRE, there are some recent positive developments in Finland. These HR instruments are incorporated in the underlying values of basic education for grades , as well as the Upper Secondary level. They are also added as a new content in the history education for grades For the Upper Secondary level a new content including human rights, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights treaties is added into history compulsory to all and philosophy advanced course, voluntary.
This has been a welcome change in a situation where human rights have been taught on a project basis, and the teachers have not been aware of whose responsibility it is to promote the set of values involved. However, it is essential that the human rights are a part of the practical teaching activity. Teachers still receive no systematic training in human rights issues. Hence, they lack adequate skills to teach them. Increasingly multi-cultural nature of the society increases also the demand for information on human rights. We urge the Finnish government to introduce human rights education and in particular education on the rights of the child as a permanent and mandatory part of training of teachers and other professionals working with and for children.
To continue to take effective measures to prevent violence against women, and to compile information on the violence against children within the family. The current criminal code and sanctions prescribe insufficient means for preventing violence against the children within a family. The research on violence against children should be continuous in order to have any practical impact.
Unfortunately, no permanent funding for this kind of research is available in Finland at the moment. A study carried out in on child victims surveys the prevalence of sexual exploitation, violence, online sexual molestation and bullying of children. According to studies, the amount of sexual abuse has not increased in Finland. A growing number of sexual abuse cases are reported to filed by the authorities and lead to a sentence. The sentences on sexual assaults have become more severe in recent years. However, the Internet has introduced the risk of a new kind of sexual violence.
Online sexual harassment of young persons by adults or by notably older children has become common, but there is not enough research on sexual violence targeted at children on the Internet in Finland. The phenomenon also involves judicial weaknesses and shortcomings, such as in cases of grooming, and lack of information in cases where early intervention and recognition of the victims would be essential.
In some national minority cultures and immigrant communities, many girls and young women face the threat of traditional honour violence, and they need help and protection against it. The honour violence constitutes a threat also to young boys who live under its influence.