Minister Thors at The 4th FOKO Conference, Espoo
Distinguished guests, dear friends,
It is with great pleasure I open the FOKO conference in Espoo - the first conference ever to address female genital mutilation in Finland. It is a very urgent matter that you are going to discuss during these two days, and I hope you will get both helpful information and the strength to carry on your extremely important work, in cooperation with your colleagues worldwide.
As minister of Migration, I here want to address the specific problems that women, and also small girls, face in relation to migration.
In recent years, the special status of refugee women and girls has been firmly on the agenda both in international bodies and national programmes, and it is also recognised in legislation. Gradually, people have become increasingly aware of the fact that women face specific human rights violations and persecution solely on the basis of their gender, the reasons for and forms of which depending just on their gender.
At present, no relevant body or actor denies the fact that women and girls are in a very vulnerable position as asylum seekers and refugees. We also know that women integrating into a new home country often have specific problems related, for example, to the tension between women's status, on the one hand, in the culture of the country oforigin, and on the other, in the culture of the new country that they have entered as immigrants. Many women and children are also left very alone inside the walls of the home in their new country, in cases where the immigrated family father is working. The family is sometimes even left outside basic services of society.
Approximately half of any refugee population consists of women and girls. UNHCR and NGOs working in refugee communities report on human rights violations that women encounter as refugees, and when fleeing from their home countries. The cruellest forms are harassment and sexual abuse, which in some cases are officially or de facto accepted. Even those involved in helping refugees, for example nurses and teachers, are subjected to human rights violations. Consequently, UNHCR has prepared and implemented specific programmes to ensure that women have equal access to protection and basic goods and services, and that both the authorities and other bodies ensuring security to refugees adopt a total condemnation of sexual abuse.
Gender-based persecution is a concept that is used not only in the reports and recommendations drafted by UNHCR but now also in the discussions conducted in the EU. It is also included in asylum standards and in the legislation of various countries on international protection. Furthermore, Women's Studies, UNHCR as a global intergovernmental body and a variety of NGOs have paved the way for clarifying this issue and bringing it up on the agendas on international protection.
Human rights violations that women are subjected to on the basis of their gender include, for example, various forms of sexual violence, circumcision, forced abortion, forced sterilisation, various violations of human rights and self-determination related to the institution of marriage. These in turn include forced marriages, forcing minor girls - even girl-children - to marry mature men, cases of domestic violence, which are de facto accepted, and therefore, women cannot receive help against such violence from public authorities. Human rights violations also encompass severe punishments for violating the standards of behaviour, for example ignoring dress codes or social codes, they encompass adulteries, for which only women are punished under law or current practice. Furthermore, we regard as human rights violations cases where widows or women who have been left alone are abandoned or in the worst case killed.
It is important to realise that these acts or punishments that women are subjected to are often forbidden by law in the country concerned, but they are, however, de facto accepted locally, socially and even judicially. It often happens that higher authorities and the judiciary ignore these acts, which leads to the fact that women do not receive protection against human rights violations from the authorities.
Under the Finnish Aliens Act of 2004, gender-based human rights violations and persecution are regarded as grounds for granting an applicant asylum. But identifying and recognising specific human rights violations based on the special status of women and the female gender are a regrettably slow process when applying legislation and making decisions in practice. This can also be seen in Finland where, so far, asylum has been granted on grounds of gender-based persecution only in very few cases.
Accordingly, amending legislation is only a necessary first step. In addition, we must provide the authorities who examine or make decisions on asylum applications, court judges, persons providing legal aid and other authorities with consistent and massive training in order to transfer legal provisions into practice and to interpret them correctly. The new development may also be hampered by old attitudes that are hard to break.
The European Union also expects its Member States to take new legislative measures in this field. The qualification directive adopted in 2004 must be incorporated in national legislation. The directive gives examples of acts to be considered persecution and of circumstances that Member States must take into account when establishing reasons for persecution. In these examples, focus is clearly on a gender-based perspective. Sexual violence and acts that are gender-based by nature are now explicitly regarded as persecution. This is the first time at the level of directives on international protection that focus is placed on elements of gender-based persecution against women. Therefore, the Member States should also examine and amend their national provisions on asylum from the perspective of gender.
Women and girls are in a particularly vulnerable position as refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. A variety of multifaceted instruments are needed in order to safeguard their human rights. We need legislation, case law sensitive to women's rights, training, attitude shaping and practical help both in countries of origin and countries where refugees come to seek protection, and where they possibly stay.
In Finland the work has begun, but we still have a lot to do in identifying the various problems women face within often very different aspects and situations of migration. We then need to create relevant instruments and legislation to tackle the problems.
Human rights are universal and violating these rights is not permitted, not even under the pretext of cultural diversity. Human rights also apply to women, and women's rights are human rights.
I wish you all an interesting conference - and good luck with your highly important work on human rights for women