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Sweden sets up truth commission to probe crimes against Sami community

The Swedish government has vowed to set up a truth commission to examine the country's past treatment of the Sami minority.

Published: 3 November 2021 15:56 CET
Sweden sets up truth commission to probe crimes against Sami community
Swedish and Sami representatives at a ceremony in 2019, which saw the reburial of Sami remains at the cemetery from which they were taken in Lycksele. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

The commission would be tasked with charting and investigating the policies affecting the Sami and their implementation.

“It feels very good that we can finally appoint a truth commission,” culture and democracy minister Amanda Lind said in a statement.

“The government has a responsibility to increase knowledge of the abuses, rights violations and racism that Sami people have been subjected to,” Lind continued.

The minister also said that increasing awareness of “historical injustices” was important to “facilitate reconciliation”.

The Sami are believed to have arrived in the region at the end of the last ice age.

Victims of a brutal assimilation policy in the past, today they have been recognised as an indigenous people and have their own parliament in Sweden, but rights groups continue to denounce the state’s handling of Sami issues.

Although Sweden does not include ethnicities in any censuses, the Sami Parliament estimates between 20,000 and 40,000 Sami live in the country.

Of these, between 2,500 and 3,000 make a living from traditional reindeer herding, closely linked to Sami culture.

The commission would also be tasked with spreading awareness of Sami history and how past abuses affect Sami people today.

Last week, a similar initiative was launched in neighbouring Finland, when the government officially appointed a truth and reconciliation commission to “collect Sami people’s experiences of the actions of the Finnish state”.

The independent Finnish panel, whose five members were appointed by both the government and Sami representatives, is expected to begin hearing testimony within the coming weeks and will deliver its final report in November 2023.

Members of the Swedish commission have yet to be appointed but according to the government it would be tasked with presenting its findings by December 1st, 2025.

Representatives of the Sami Parliament, which together with Sami interest groups petitioned Sweden’s government to establish a truth commission in 2019, welcomed the announcement.

“It is now time that the Sami people’s history and reality comes to light,” said Marie Persson Njajta, chair of the Sami Parliament’s group for a truth commission.

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WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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