Updated 02.53 | Published at 02.45
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full screen The development of Sami rights has deteriorated in Finland over the past 15 years, according to a new report. Archive image. Photo: Heiko Junge/NTB Scanpix/TT
The development of Sami rights has been negative for the past 15 years, professor and human rights lawyer Martin Scheinin states in a report.
Among other things, Finland has not adopted the international labor organization ILO’s convention on the rights of indigenous peoples, even though it has been involved in drafting it and the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, writes EPN.
“Although Finland is considered by the UN to work for the rights of indigenous peoples, the positive development for the Sami people in Finland seems to have stopped,” reads the report, which was commissioned by the Sami Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
According to Scheinin, other aspects where the Sami are not given full rights concern who gets to vote in the Finnish Sami Parliament, but also issues of grazing, mining, forest use and fishing.