legal and social conditions for asylum seekers and refugees in ...

Work
According to Section 25 of the Aliens Act, asylum seekers may apply for a permission to work
related to a specific job, after three months in the country. Because of the high unemployment
rate in Finland, the permission is only granted by the local employment officer if the job cannot be
filled by a national or someone with a residence permit. In practice, very few asylum seekers are
able to find work.
According to Section 19 of the Integration Act, work and training activities are organised in the
reception centres. Asylum seekers who refuse to participate in the organised activities may have
their living allowance reduced.
The work activities proposed in the centres may include cleaning and repairing the reception
facilities, office work, organising children, hobbies or cultural activities, etc. Handicraft workshops
and projects outside the reception centres may also be established.
The training activities in the centres usually consist of language tuition and information on the
Finnish society and the legal system. Asylum seekers may also attend courses outside the
reception centres, such as computer work and handicraft. In some cases, asylum seekers may
organise training activities in the centres themselves.
Language tuition
All reception centres offer language tuition in either Finnish or Swedish.
School attendance
Child care
Children of asylum seekers are entitled to attend Finnish comprehensive school (from 7 to 16
years of age) and they usually do. This is free of charge for everybody. In many schools, children
are placed in special preparatory classes for foreign children where they are first taught Finnish or
Swedish before going into a normal school class.
Adult asylum seekers are also free to apply for a place in any school, institute or university. It is
up to the school whether or not to accept them as students.
Asylum seekers are not entitled to municipal child care, but the reception centres sometimes
organise child care groups on a smaller scale when necessary (when parents are attending
language classes or working in the centres). Usually this is provided by voluntary workers.
Female asylum seekers
There is no special procedures or accommodation for women asylum seekers, but single women
and single mothers are often accommodated in a separate section of the reception centre.
Unaccompanied minors
About 1,000 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers – most of them Somalis – have arrived to
Finland in the nineties. Four reception centres deal specifically with the reception of
unaccompanied children, and minors accommodated there live in special sections for children.
Some minors also live with families of their own nationality, who are often relatives to the child.
In common with the other children of asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors are entitled to
attend Finnish school, which they usually do.
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Finland