Observations by the National Rapporteur on Violence against Women: 83rd session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women - Consideration of the state report of Finland

The Finnish Non-Discrimination Ombudsman acts as the National Rapporteur on Violence against Women. The duties are prescribed by law by the amendment 988/2021 to the Act on Non-Discrimination Ombudsman, which entered into force as of January 1, 2022. The National Rapporteur monitors and assesses national policies and measures combating and preventing violence against women and do-mestic violence. The National Rapporteur works independently and autonomously.

The Rapporteur wishes hereby to draw the Committee’s attention to the thematic issues listed below.

Need for nation-wide comprehensive and coordinated structures to combat gender-based violence against women

The National Rapporteur is concerned about the lack of institutionalised structures for violence prevention and the inadequate level of coopera-tion and coordination of services for victims of gender-based violence against women.

In the Rapporteur’s view, to ensure effective protection of victims and their recovery, municipal and regional authorities, and service providers, including non-governmental organisations, must cooperate and act in a coordinated manner. Setting up institutional structures for cooperation and coordination, as well as service pathways for victims of gender-based and interpersonal violence throughout the country must be an integral part of the ongoing national reform of social and health care services.

For now, local authorities have been responsible for municipal social and health care services, including prevention of gender-based and interpersonal violence. Guidelines for local and regional authorities on how to respond to domestic violence in a coordinated manner have been issued already in 2008 by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (summary in English).

Despite the guidelines, however, the progress since the guidelines’ publication have been too slow. Based on a survey carried out in 2019, about half of the municipalities and joint municipal authorities responding to the survey did not, as of the beginning of 2019, have in place a coordination or cooperation group for prevention of interpersonal violence, as was set out in the recommendations. On the other hand, the regions where cooperation structures are in place have also planned client service pathways for intervening in interpersonal violence and set monitoring objectives for preventing interpersonal violence more frequently than other regions (Report on the processes for intervening in and preventing intimate partner violence, abstract in English). Amnesty International Finland’s municipal survey (in Finnish) published in 2021 indicates that awareness of the recommendations for the prevention of interpersonal and domestic violence remains poor in municipalities. Based on the survey, the recommendations are only partially implemented in municipalities and are not reflected as expected in practice. 

Access to justice of victims of sexual and gender-based harassment

The Ombudsman for Equality has recommended in his report to the Parliament 2022 to improve the access to justice of victims of harassment (K 1/2022 vp). The current legislative framework is confusing for victims as the same deed can be assessed in light of different laws and remedies, and by different competent authorities. For instance, sexual harassment in employment can be viewed as gender-based discrimination prohibited by the Act on Equality between Women and Men (609/1987), as harassment or other inappropriate treatment prescribed in the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Section 28, 738/2002), and it can constitute one or more offences criminalised in the Penal Code (39/1889), such as sexual harassment (Section 6, Chapter 20), work safety offence (Section 1, Chapter 47), and work discrimination (Section 3, Chapter 47). Case law regarding harassment applying the Act on Equality Between Women and Men is scarce, whereas it seems more common to institute criminal proceedings against the perpetrator. This is understandable as in criminal proceedings the victims do not carry the economic risk if they lose the case against the defendant. However, the compensation for the victim in the criminal proceedings is not as good as it would be in a case where the Act on Equality is applied.

The Ombudsman for Equality has called for an overall review of domestic case law and practices on harassment and to carry out reform accordingly in order to lower the threshold for victims to take legal action and get better compensation. The Rapporteur supports the Ombudsman’s view.

Penal Code (39/1889) and gender

The national Penal Code should be reviewed as a whole, and gender should be in-cluded as a relevant factor both in the general provisions on measuring the pun-ishment, as well as in the essential elements of different individual offences. This approach is supported both by the Istanbul Convention and the EU Commission’s proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combat-ing violence against women and domestic violence (COM (2022) 105 final).

Mediation in cases of domestic violence

The latest national Review on Criminality by the National Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy (Krimo, Katsauksia 5/2022) reveals that cases of domestic violence are often mediated. Domestic violence cases constitute the second most common type of all violent offences referred to mediation. Overall, the numbers show a steady increase of domestic violence cases in said procedure (pp. 176-177). The Rapporteur does not consider mediation to be an appropriate response to domestic violence.

Kristina Stenman
The National Rapporteur on Violence against Women, the Finnish Non-Discrimination Ombudsman

Marjo Rantala
Senior Officer

15.09.2022