Of the 8th and 9th graders born abroad, one in three says that they experienced a physical threat during the year. For children of Finnish background, the proportion is 16 percent.
Of those with a foreign background the children's lives appear to be more unsafe than those of children of Finnish background by many measures. They face different types of violence in their lives and use substances more often than children of Finnish parents, according to the 2023 school health survey conducted by the Institute of Health and Welfare (THL).
In this context, a person with a foreign background means children who were born abroad or whose parents were born elsewhere than in Finland.
An expert at the youth mental health association Yees Vanessa Grant not surprised by the results.
“Young people with a foreign background experience violence quite a lot more than young people with a migrant background. They may also get into violent situations independently. All such symptoms stem from something,” Grant tells STT.
He adds that the differences with children of Finnish background would be even sharper if the issue were asked of children belonging to visible minorities. Visible minority means that minority status is revealed based on a person's appearance.
“Even these statistics, which now look quite shocking, do not correspond to the experience of the marginal part, which is especially black and brown youth.”
THL's according to the school health survey, 32 percent of 8th and 9th graders born abroad have experienced a physical threat during the year. The share of children born in Finland with a foreign background is about 19 percent, and those with a Finnish background 16 percent. About half of children with a foreign background have experienced discrimination, compared to one in three of those with a Finnish background.
THL's survey did not directly ask about racism, i.e. the results do not tell which part of the violence and discrimination experienced by children is related to their ethnic background. However, Grant says the results are in line with what he sees in his work on the mental health of young people who experience racism. More than 1,400 young people have so far participated in Yees' Muudi project, which started in 2022.
At the end of last year, the Advisory Council on Ethnic Relations (Etno) also reported on racist violence against children and young people.
School health questionnaire based on this, children with a foreign background are also subjected to sexual violence more often than children with a Finnish background. One in four children born abroad had experienced sexual violence during the year, almost 12 percent of children born in Finland with a foreign background and just under eight percent of children with a Finnish background.
Grant believes the result is related to sexualizing stereotypes of black and brown girls as more mature or sexual.
“Black and brown girls report being sexualized from a very, very young age, significantly younger than their white peers.”
Young men and boys also face sexual harassment and violence, but it's harder for them to talk about it, according to Grant.
“There is still quite a stigma that a man can feel harassed. But that also happens a lot.”
Grant says that with visible minority youth, it feels like their integrity doesn't mean much to people.
“Physical caressing and touching hair – these people would hardly apply it to people who look like themselves, but for some reason they feel it is their right when a person represents a different ethnic group or skin color. That a person is a free game and you can somehow touch and play with him in a different way.”
THL's according to the school health survey, children with a foreign background experience bullying from teachers more often than Finnish children. According to Grant, the profession shows the same prejudices as anywhere else. What makes the situation difficult is the power relationship between the teacher and the children, he says.
According to Grant, it's about, for example, the use of racist language, which the teacher may cover up with the ulterior motive of telling the children about history.
“According to the young people's descriptions, sometimes it seems that it is even intentional and prickly and is based on the teacher's idea of freedom of speech.”
Grant says that the racist behavior of teachers reported by young people is most often related to limiting the behavior. That nothing is said to a white-skinned child who is late for class, but when the young person himself is late, he gets a big sanction for it.
“The children are in a very vulnerable situation because power relations are strongly connected to this. If an adult wants to hurt a child, he can do it very easily.”
Etno's report also told about racism practiced by teachers and that teachers do not intervene in racist bullying. According to Grant, the young people's experience is that racism is only addressed at school when there is violence involved or when someone cries.
“Ignorance eventually causes the normalization of racism. It gives the young person the experience that he deserves to be treated this way.”
So racism can be fought and its consequences dealt with, the key is understanding the diversity of racism.
Grant says that a common question among young people who experience racism in Muud's peer support groups is whether they have permission to be offended by the behavior they encounter or why a situation has made them feel bad.
Grant says that even if repeated treatment isn't necessarily done knowingly or with hostility, it can still hurt. A person is not necessarily hurt by the situation in question alone, but the accumulation of repeated experiences makes it painful.
“If there is an experience of being treated unequally compared to others – whatever the motive behind it – that feeling is genuine and important.”
Grant says that i
n Muud's groups young people learn to recognize racism, talk about its effects and increase their resilience in relation to it.
“This does not mean that they need to learn to tolerate racism more than before. But since I can't promise them that it will end tomorrow, the only way to guarantee that they will be able to live on an equal footing with others is for us to increase their psychological ability to survive.”
Grant's the effects of racism are always individual. For others, it can cause various mental health problems, such as anxiety and even post-traumatic stress symptoms, he says.
He says that he often asks young people what was the first feeling that came to them after experiencing racism. Especially for boys, the feeling is often anger.
“And that feeling of anger is really strong for them and can be seen physically. If you are the target of such a hate crime several times, it can arouse feelings of hatred towards other people in many people.”
According to the school health survey, regular use of alcohol and drug experimentation are significantly more common among young people with a foreign background. While just under three percent of 8th and 9th graders of Finnish background said they used alcohol every week, the proportion of children born abroad was almost 17 percent. Almost seven percent of people of Finnish background said they had tried drugs. Almost 11 percent of children born in Finland with a foreign background reported experimenting with drugs, and nearly 26 percent of children born abroad.
When considering the reasons for the higher level of drug use among children of foreign backgrounds, Grant urges us to think about why drugs are used in general.
“Their ethnic background does not predispose them to the use of intoxicants. Intoxicants are used to numb the bad feeling, because they make you feel lighter even for a moment. In the same way, it has been seen all over the world that the use of intoxicants is often higher among minorities. One of the reasons has been considered to be precisely the effects of discrimination on mental health.”
Grant says that the mental health effects of racism are not yet sufficiently known, for example in healthcare.
“Young people often say that when they have tried to discuss their experiences of racism with a professional helper, the reception has been pretty bad.”
The only option, according to Grant, is for healthcare personnel to be trained in racism and anti-racism.
“I would like every professional doing mental health work to know how to deal with people who have experiences of racism in the background.”
Education would also be needed in schools. Grant says that anyone can fight racism, and it doesn't necessarily require big actions. For example, reporting racist comments online is a small but impressive thing.
“The best of all would be that when you see a racist situation, you would have the courage to intervene and show the victim that you are on his side.”
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