Flyktingbloggen: Pakolaisneuvonta: The struggle to preserve what is left of the Finnish good asylum practices 1.6.2011
In asylum matters of Europe the poor practices travel easily from one country to another, whereas the good ones are not copied as eagerly. So far Finland has had a good legislation and practices in asylum matters, says the senior lawyer Marjaana Laine from Finnish Refugee Advice Centre. Change of political climate has reached Finland too and asylum laws have been tightened under a lot of political pressure. The lawyers at the Finnish Refugee Advice Centre struggle daily for fair asylum practices.
As the number of asylum seekers started to rise in Finland reaching the record number of 6000 in 2009, at the same time the very vocal anti-refugee groups started to organize themselves also outside the internet helping the True Finns party gain victory at municipal elections in 2008. This strengthened the traditional fear and loathing towards refugees inside the mainstream parties, where suspicion of asylum seekers and disdain for human rights has always been a vital element – as activist-writer Jussi Förbom has shown in his noteworthy book Hallan vaara, which examines Finnish parliamentary debates around immigration during last two decades.
Even with the numbers being modest compared to neighboring countries, a strong impression of Finland being more liberal, generous and attractive to asylum seekers than other countries was created by the panic in the media and all over the internet during these years and it lives on among many Finns, even though there are no facts to support it. Ministry of the Interior studied asylum policies in the Nordic countries in 2009 and found some differences between countries but no signs of Finland being more liberal than other countries.
Anyway, under a lot of political pressure the government initiated several restrictions on asylum policy; since 2009 until 2011 financial assistance to asylum seekers has been cut, access to labor market restricted and family reunification rules and practices tightened remarkably.
All the recent changes in the asylum policy of Finland affect real people in real situations, so let us ask Marjaana Laine, senior lawyer at the Refugee Advice Centre in Finland since the 1990´s , what are the most topical concerns right now, looking at the situation of the asylum seekers in Finland in terms of legal safeguards and how they are realised in practise?
Processing times are very long in Finland and this together with the pressure to proceed faster can lead to problems. Prolonged waiting especially affects the people who are already traumatized to start with. Sometimes their condition deteriorates to the point that they will not recover. Even if the decision in the end would be positive, it does not have any meaning anymore to people who are totally worn out. From the perspective of Finnish society this is very shortsighted policy.
At the same time there is a lot of pressure to make the procedures more efficient. All the recommendations emphasize the initial stage of the procedure, during which the actual grounds for international protection should be investigated and cleared out. The pressure to speed up procedure may sometimes lead to haphazard conduct of asylum interviews and restrictions on how much legal counseling or medical examination the asylum seeker may receive. In worst cases the result is that certain facts and grounds are not recognized and brought up, and there will be a false negative decision.
The particularly vulnerable asylum seekers include the traumatized and those who have been tortured. Many have also seen their family members being tortured, threatended or treated violently. The particularly vulnerable are not always recognized. The reasons behind this may be ignorance or nonchalance to the notion of vulnerability.
The general atmosphere in the society has a certain impact on asylum procedure. Starting point often seems to be that the asylum seeker is an abuser of the system and he/she has the burden of proof to show that is not the case. This attitude is sometimes expressed in questions posed during the asylum interview. For example, in the case with clear signs of human trafficking these signs may be ignored and instead the asylum seeker is questioned if he/she has entered the country for economical reasons.
The testing has also increased, both medical age assessment and language testing. In my opinion the questioning method should be basis of asylum investigation, and if there are clear signs of lying or false information, test can be used. At the moment testing seems to be more or less automatic, even without particular grounds. The final decision on asylum is strongly based on test results. Outsourcing the decision making to the commercial firms, which conduct the testing, is not a right direction.
Also the unaccompanied minors are regularly sent to the age assessment tests, although it should be done only in cases where there are obvious reasons to believe the asylum seeker is over 18 years or age. And the most tested group (15-18 years) is exactly the group in which the test gives the most inaccurate results.
Under a lot of political pressure in 2009 the previous government initiated several restrictions in the name of “eliminating pull factors” which affect asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection. Financial assistance to asylum seekers was cut, entering labour market for asylum seekers without passport was made more difficult. More and more age assessment and language tests started to be used and Finnish Immigration Service took a position against UNHCR guidelines and claimed Baghdad safe enough destination to send rejected asylum seekers to. Family reunification for beneficiaries of international protection has become increasingly more difficult both due to legislation and to practise. Which of these changes are most remarkable and with what consequences?
As a whole the asylum legislation in Finland has been and still is relatively good. The legislation allows the officials to act if there are clear abuses of the asylum system or unfounded asylum claims.
The most radical measures by the government 2007-2011 are the ones that affect right to family reunification and the position of children. According to the present law unaccompanied minors have to be under 18 years of age at the date of the decision (not the date of the application, as before) and family reunification travel costs have to be covered by the refugees themselves, except for those who arrive through resettlement scheme. The Somalians travelling to Addis Abeba for family reunification procedure are required to reside legally in Ethiopia, otherwise there will be an automatic negative decision.
Processing times in family reunification cases are extremely long, often several years, which is actually against the law. It is not uncommon that the minor asylum seeker becomes an adult during this lengthy waiting time, and then may lose the right to live with his/her family members. Sometimes family members have even died during the procedure. Waiting is mentally distressing as there is often a great concern about the well being of family members, and this is clearly a hindrance to the integration process.
There has also been administrative changes, sice the reception of asylum seekers was removed from the Ministry of the Interior to the Finnish Immigration Service. Now that the reception and decision making are under the same roof in the same agency, there is a constant concern on how the two can be kept sufficiently independent from each other. For example, the confidentiality regulations should be always followed so that confidential information does not leak from the reception centres to the decision maker. The primary function of the reception is to offer reception facilities to the asylum seekers during the procedure. Reception is not a part of the decision making procedure. The roles of different authorities should be clear and the asylum seekers need to be able to trust the reception system.
In terms of Dublin system, how do you assess the actions of Finland within the system?
The decision to stop deportations to Greece was made only after ECtHR´s M.S.S. decision in January 2011. That was too late, because for several years there had been clear evidence about the conditions in Greece, and the officials were aware of it.The numbers of asylum seekers in Finland are rather negligible anyway, so in the name of European responsibility sharing Dublin cases from Greece should have been taken into procedure in Finland already before.
As the Dublin system is based on the idea of a common European asylum system, which does not exist, it is doomed to produce inhumane results for the asylum seekers.
Finland is still returning people to Italy and Malta, although there are serious concerns on whether the reception conditions in these countries are at acceptable level. At the moment the number of Dublin cases in Finland is very low. It is possible that the reputation of Finland being very strict on Dublin returns may be a reason for the low numbers.
There are Dublin cases from Italy and Malta, who have stayed in Finland for years, practically in limbo. Some of them have been granted residence permit in Italy or Malta on protection grounds, but without any real support from the state they have not been able to survive there and have moved on to another country. The residence permit may protect them from return to the country of origin, but guarantees nothing else. Some of them are victims of human trafficking and have often experienced sexual violence. Many of them have told Finnish authorities that they are minors, although they have been registered as adults in Malta or Italy for one reason or another.
In some cases the European Court of Human Rights has stopped their deportation by an interim measure, but Finland has refused to take their asylum claims into the procedure in the country. They are just waiting in reception centres. The interim measure by the ECtHR may be lifted when the minors become 18 years of age, and a forced return to Malta or Italy may be ahead of them even after 2-3 years in Finland. In some cases they have learnt fluent Finnish and adapted to the society, even found a job and still they are deported to a tent camp in Malta or to the streets of Italy, where they are often easy pray to human trafficking and criminal gangs, even forced to prostitution or drug trade.
This is incredibly stupid policy from the EU, deliberately creating immigrant groups that are marginalized and truly problematic to the society. It is all the more easy for certain anti-immigrant groups to demand all asylum seekers and refugees removed out of the country, when results of refugee policy are like this. And these are people with clear protections needs, coming from areas where return is not a possibility. The politicians are loudly committing to the struggle against human trafficking, but at the same time the system produces human trafficking and ignores its victims. These problems are caused by the system in Europe, not the asylum seekers who are the victims of the system.
Interview by Sanna Rummakko