All in For Equality -project

Goals and results

The objectives of the project include combating discrimination and harassment targeted at ethnic and religious minorities in Finland, increasing awareness about a range of social biases that lead to structural discrimination, educating the labor market about diversity and promoting social inclusion among young people from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds.The project is coordinated by the Ministry of Justice. In addition to the Ministry of Justice, the partners of the project are the Office of the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman, the Finnish League for Human Rights, Finnish Business Society ry and the City of Helsinki.


The project consists of five (5) work packages.

1) Project coordination and management: This work package consists of project coordination and management on a general level, including financial administration and regular reporting via the commission’s participant portal.

2)Enabling bystanders to intervene in discrimination and harassment: The objective of this work package is to develop new low threshold tools that enable bystanders to intervene in discrimination and harassment and to increase awareness of cultural and social notions that lead to discrimination and social exclusion in daily life. Other tasks include raising awareness among education professionals and secondary-school students.

3)Increasing diversity in working life: This work package is aimed at enforcing the prohibition of discrimination in respect of visible ethnic and religious minorities and increase understanding and knowledge about diversity and inclusion in working life. The work involved includes developing quality criteria for diversity management, which will give employers tangible tools for managing diversity and promoting the principle of non-discrimination in workplaces. Indicators will be established to act as a foundation for educating employers. In addition training a programme will be designed for employment counselors to increase awareness about the challenges involved in achieving non-discrimination in working life and tools to promote equity.

4) Promoting social inclusion among young people from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds through active participation: The aim of this work package is to promote social inclusion among young people by establishing a dialogue between the youth and decision-makers. Other tasks include designing a training course for the police focusing on ethnic profiling and promoting non-discrimination to help maintain trust between different population groups and especially trust in the authorities and the police in particular.

5)Exchange of information between Member States to increase the impact of the actions: This work package is designed to identify best practices relating to the themes of the project that have already been adopted in other Member States and to invite the relevant operators to provide peer support.

Summary

The objectives of the project include combating discrimination and harassment targeted at ethnic and religious minorities in Finland, increasing awareness about a range of social biases that lead to structural discrimination, educating the labor market about diversity and promoting social inclusion among young people from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds.

Starting points

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published the results of its Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU MIDIS II) in Decem-ber 2017. The results showed that on average, experiences of racism, harassment and discrimination are considerably more common in Finland than across Europe, especially among members of visible ethnic or religious minorities. The All in for Equality project builds on the findings of the EU MIDIS II survey and seeks to address the main is-sues highlighted by the results. These include
1) prevalence of experiences of harassment in daily life,
2) perceived discrimination in the labour market (incl. access to employment),
3) damage done to young people’s sense of social inclusion by experiences of discrimination, and
4) erosion of young people’s trust in the authorities and society as a result of ethnic profiling.

Many international human rights monitors have called attention to the rise in racism and discrimination and urged Finland to take more forceful action. A report published by the Finnish Non-Discrimination Ombudsman in 2020 also talks about the prevalence of harassment and discrimination especially in urban public spaces, education and the labour market.

Several initiatives aimed at reinforcing efforts to combat racism and discrimination are in progress at the moment. The measures outlined in the Programme of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s Government include drawing up action plans against racism and discrimination and for promoting good relations between population groups,
preparing a diversity programme for the labour market from the perspective of immigration and integration as well as a national programme for youth work and youth policy, one of the objectives of which is to identify discriminatory structures that affect young people and to provide tools for intervening in discrimination.