Ulkoasiainministeriölle
Ensi ja Turvakotien liiton lausunto liittyen Euroopan neuvoston yleissopimukseen ihmiskaupan vastaisesta toiminnasta ja Suomen vastaukseen sopimuksen ensimmäisen arviointikierroksen kyselyyn (HEL7836-28)
Ensi- ja turvakotien liitto antaa lausuntonsa GRETAn arviointikyselyn kohdista, jotka koskevat
- kansalaisjärjestöjen mukanaoloa valtakunnallisessa ihmiskaupan vastaisessa toiminnassa ja
- ihmiskaupan uhrien auttamista.
Lausuttavat asiat on jaoteltu suoraan ao. arviointikyselyn pääotsikoiden ja kysymysten alle ja erottuvat kyselyn tekstistä eri värisinä. Lausuntopyynnössä esitetyn toiveen mukaisesti vastaukset on kirjoitettu englanniksi.
Preliminary questions
Question 3: Did any non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or other entities of civil society contribute to responding to this questionnaire? If so, please indicate the main activities of each of the NGOs and/or other entities of civil society which contributed.
The Federation of Mother and child homes and Shelters (FMS) is a national child welfare NGO founded in 1945. It is particularly concerned with helping families in difficult situations and preventing domestic violence. FMS has had shelters for domestic violence since 1979 and also the work with perpetrators started twenty years ago.
FMS is a central organization for 29 member associations, which run
- 12 shelters for the victims of domestic violence,
- 10 Mother and child homes for supporting babies, families and early relationships,
- 6 Mother and child homes specialized in substance abusing parents and
- a large variety of community services and projects helping families in difficult situations, including work with perpetrators and supporting child’s best interests in divorcing families.
The work of the FMS central organisation consists of
- supporting member associations by coordinating activities, training and quality assistance
- developing new methods of work and carrying out experiments and projects aiming at establishing new services
- publishing research reports and studies, and a journal for members
- advancing NGO-activities in local and national level
- lobbying, co-operation and international relations: FMS takes an active part in the field of the social welfare and health sector both nationally and internationally. The most important fields of international co-operation are child welfare, work against domestic violence and the prevention of poverty and marginalisation.
Section I.2. Comprehensive approach to THB, co-ordination of all actors and actions to prevent and combat
THB and to protect its victims, and international co-operation
- co-operation and partnership with civil society (Article 35). The strategic partnership referred to in Article 35 between State authorities and public officials and civil society means the setting-up of co-operative frameworks through which state actors fulfil their obligations under the Convention, by co-ordinating their efforts with

civil society. Co-operation with international non-governmental organisations active in the field of prevention and protection of the victims of THB is also needed.

Do NGOs have full membership status in your national co-ordinating body? If so, how many? Please describe the criteria for NGO membership.
FMS has co-operated in developing the national helping system as a member of the developing committee and is also mentioned as one of the helpers in the national ihmiskauppa.fi -webpages. At the moment we are a member of the national network against trafficking.
Section II.2. Implementation of measures to protect and promote the rights of victims of trafficking in human beings

Please indicate which types of assistance described in Article 12 of the Convention are provided to victims of THB in your country. Please specify who provides the different types of assistance.
In our organisation we have are 30 years of experience in working against domestic violence and helping the victims of it. Especially helping victims of stalking has many features in common with some cases of helping the victims of trafficking. While there are a lot of similarities in how the ongoing threat and violence affects a person, there are at the same time notable differences both in the context of exprerienced violence and in the helping system – which we need to be familiar with in order to help well the victims of human trafficking.
It is clear that there is a need for places, where the victims of human trafficking can stay safely and also get help to overcome their traumatizing experiences of violence. The victims of human trafficking need help not only to get away from the subjugating situation and to get justice, but also in their mental and social recovery process.
The national system of helping victims of human trafficking is fairly new in Finland – it started in 2006. Shelters of domestic violence are a small part of it. Consequently, during the past few years there have been some victims of human trafficking coming to shelters for domestic violence. From these experiences we’ve learned, that in order to help victims of human trafficking better,
1) we need to give more information to the staff of the shelters about the phenomenon of human trafficking, about the identifying and helping systems and about how to help a client with this kind of violence-experiences
2) we need to give out more information to the network of helpers about how shelters work and how the shelters can be used in the helping process.
At the moment FMS is concerned about maintaining the shelters as part of the helping system. There was for a few years a group of 6 shelters which started and were committed to developing the work with victims of trafficking. We had meetings for sharing experiences and good practices and had training for the group, for example the national rapporteur on human trafficking introducing the phenomenon and the national situation. The problem is that the contact to the helping system has been decreasing, and so has directing victims of trafficking to the shelters - there has been only a few during these years. This also diminishes the motivation in shelters to develop the help to meet the special needs of the victims of trafficking – and this way the work slowly seems to fade away. To have this help available for the victims we need to keep it up consciously: to organize face-to-face networking with the helping system and also training for the shelters.

In addition to help in shelters, some victims of trafficking would benefit of the help in Mother and child homes, where pregnant mothers or mothers with newborn babies get support with building a safe everyday life and strengthening the relationship between the often traumatized mother and her baby. This has been seen also in our project “Asylum seeker families with babies” (Vauvaperhe turvapaikanhakijana 2012-2014), which develops the work and meet families with babies in reception centers.
FMS would like to emphasis that we have signed both the Convention on Action against Trafficking and also the
Convention on the Rights of the Child. We need to pay special attention to children victims of trafficking and to children whose parents are victims of trafficking.
Helsingissä 6.11.2013
Ensi- ja Turvakotien liitto
Ritva Karinsalo toimitusjohtaja
Sari Laaksonen kehitysjohtaja