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BRA

‘Roma need better legal protection in Sweden’

The daily discrimination faced by Sweden's Roma population violates Swedish law, according to a new report by the country's Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen – DO), which argues for tougher legislation to protect the Roma's rights.

“Local actors, such as state agencies and municipalities, need to take responsibility for seeing that Roma aren’t subject to discrimination,” ombudsman investigator Heidi Pikkarainen told the Svenska Dadbladet (SvD) newspaper.

As one of Sweden’s five national minorities, the Roma are supposed to be guaranteed the right to deal with local authorities in their own language.

Between 2004 and 2010, the ombudsman received 230 complaints alleging discrimination against Sweden’s Roma.

But prior to 2009, Swedish anti-discrimination laws didn’t encompass the way public sector employees treated members of the public, making it was impossible for the ombudsman to investigate allegations that Roma had been discriminated against in their dealings with the Swedish legal system.

According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet – Brå), Sweden’s Roma faced the most difficulty in their dealings with the country’s legal system in 2008 because of prevailing views that Roma are criminals, SvD reports.

Despite the new legislation, the ombudsman continues to find it difficult to prove the Roma are discriminated against by public bodies.

Ombudsman investigator Pikkarainen believes that laws preventing discrimination in the legal system need to be reviewed and updated.

“It’s extremely serious if someone is subject to discrimination in a legal proceeding because it’s such a central part everyone’s equal rights,” she told the newspaper.

In addition to strengthening laws, Pikkarainen believes that more Roma discrimination cases need to be heard by the Swedish courts.

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DISCRIMINATION

‘Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority’: Truth commission releases report

The Swedish state should issue a public apology to the country's Tornedalian minority, urges a truth commission set up to investigate historic wrongdoings.

'Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority': Truth commission releases report

Stockholm’s policy of assimilation in the 19th and 20th centuries “harmed the minority and continues to hinder the defence of its language, culture and traditional livelihoods,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset said in an article published in Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Amends must be made in order to move forward,” it said, adding that “acknowledging the historic wrongdoings” should be a first step.

The commission, which began work in June 2020, was to submit a final report to the government on Wednesday.

Tornedalen is a geographical area in northeastern Sweden and northwestern Finland. The Tornedalian, Kven and Lantalaiset minority groups are often grouped under the name Tornedalians, who number around 50,000 in Sweden.

The commission noted that from the late 1800s, Tornedalian children were prohibited from using their mother tongue, meänkieli, in school and forced to use Swedish, a ban that remained in place until the 1960s.

From the early 1900s, some 5,500 Tornedalian children were sent away to Lutheran Church boarding schools “in a nationalistic spirit”, where their language and traditional dress were prohibited.

Punishments, violence and fagging were frequent at the schools, and the Tornedalian children were stigmatised in the villages, the commission said.

“Their language and culture was made out to be something shameful … (and) their self-esteem and desire to pass on the language to the next generation was negatively affected.”

The minority has historically made a living from farming, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, though their reindeer herding rights have been limited over the years due to complexities with the indigenous Sami people’s herding rights.

“The minority feels that they have been made invisible, that their rights over their traditional livelihoods have been taken away and they now have no power of influence,” the commission wrote.

It recommended that the meänkieli language be promoted in schools and public service broadcasting, and the state “should immediately begin the process of a public apology”.

The Scandinavian country also has a separate Truth Commission probing discriminatory policies toward the Sami people.

That report is due to be published in 2025.

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