Speech by Hannele Pokka, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Concerning the Sámi People, at the handing over of the commission’s final report on 4 December 2025 at the Government Banquet Hall in Helsinki
It is time to right the wrongs and injustices done to the Sámi people
Distinguished recipients of our report, Mr Prime Minister, Chair of the Sámi Parliament, Skolt Saami Elder
The Government appointed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Concerning the Sámi People in cooperation with the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Saami Siida Council four years ago. The appointment of the Commission was a unique event. There has never been a commission of this kind in Finland.
In line with its mandate, the Commission has identified and assessed historical and current discrimination against the Sámi people, including state assimilation policy, as well as violations of rights. We have done this through consultations in which we heard how these injustices have affected and continue to affect the Sámi people and their communities. Our report also puts forth proposals for improving the legal status of the Sámi people.
As the Commission’s work comes to an end, we are especially grateful to the nearly four hundred Sámi who shared their experiences with us and did their part to ensure that the injustices they and previous generations experienced do not happen again. We would like to thank the Sámi communities for their help in organising the consultations. We would also like to thank the experts who shared their knowledge and expertise with the Commission in separate reports. A total of 25 of these reports were drawn up, and they were published upon completion. I would also like to thank the staff at the Prime Minister’s Office who helped us with practical arrangements.
Right from the outset, the Sámi Psychosocial Support Unit has operated alongside the Commission. Without their work, sharing and processing difficult experiences would have been extremely painful. The Psychosocial Support Unit was set up to support the work of the Commission, but the need for support will not go away just because the Commission’s work is ending. There is a clear need for a permanent national unit.
As we hand over our final report to you today, it should be noted that the world, and Finland’s Arctic regions, are in a completely different situation than when the Commission started its work in autumn 2021. Our work began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the war in Ukraine, changes in military policy have been seen and felt in the Arctic region. Finland’s NATO membership has brought military exercises to the Sámi homeland. Climate change is moving faster in the north than anywhere else on Earth.
Finland is not an island – it too is affected by attitudes towards Indigenous peoples around the world. Sámi remains have been excavated from graves for scientific research. Sámi people’s skulls have been measured for reasons that are unclear to us, their descendants. For a long time, the understanding in Finland was that the Sámi people would be overshadowed by the stronger Finnish culture and disappear.
There has been no legislation in Finland that would require schools to use only the Finnish language. Even so, the stories we heard from Sámi people indicate that assimilation was an unwritten practice that prevailed in schools in past decades and in the dormitories in use until the late 20th century. Finland’s school and dormitory system where Finnish culture and language were the norm has served as a strong instrument for assimilation, which has caused a decline in the passing down of Sámi languages and culture from one generation to the next. Children in boarding schools were separated from their families for long periods of time. They were punished for using their language. As a result, many children lost their connection to their language and identity. The effects of this can still be seen in Sámi communities in the form of language endangerment and loss of culture. The traumas caused by assimilation have been carried over from one Sámi generation to the next.
There is a clear, structural lack of knowledge in Finland concerning Sámi culture and status of the Sámi as an Indigenous people. The lack of knowledge about the Sámi in society affects the attitudes of the majority population and strengthens prejudices towards the Sámi. The Sámi also encounter racism and discrimination in their everyday lives and at workplaces. On social media, they face an exceptionally large amount of hate speech.
Finnish legislation does not acknowledge or recognise the Sámi way of herding reindeer, or the fishing sites used by the Sámi since time immemorial. These rights were lost a long time ago, but the Sámi have not forgotten.
After decades of intense forestry, wild forests have become scarce in the Sámi homeland. Mining and wind power construction, and the Finnish Defence Forces, with their increasing exercises in the area, are new, wide-ranging land users. Expanding tourism is competing for the same areas used for traditional livelihoods. Salmon fishing has been banned in the River Tana for five years now, threatening to destroy the River Sámi culture.
The Sámi have not stood passively on the sidelines. They have been active defenders of their communities, lands and waters. As a result, the Sámi culture is still alive, vibrant and communal.
The Sámi languages have become endangered – they are being passed down to new generations less and less or, in some places, not at all. But all three Sámi languages are still spoken as a mother tongue. That said, the linguistic rights of the Sámi are concentrated in the Sámi homeland, despite the fact that nowadays, the majority of Sámi children are born elsewhere in Finland.
The rights of the Sámi as an Indigenous people have been enshrined in several international treaties and the Constitution of Finland, and Finland has worked actively on these issues in international arenas. But these protections are not realised in practice, either because special acts below the Constitution do not take into account the rights of the Sámi people, because the authorities’ interpretation of the rights of the Sámi people varies, or because there is not enough money or Sámi-speaking personnel to realise the rights.
Finnish society does not recognise that the Sámi live all over Finland. People think it is enough for services to be available in the Sámi languages in the northernmost parts of Lapland.
Based on consultations and separate surveys, we have drawn up 68 proposals for improving the legal status of the Sámi people. I would like to highlight a few of them:
Dear founders of the Commission, We believe that the path towards reconciliation will begin when the state recognises and acknowledges that the Finnish state has been established on the lands of two people, the Sámi and the Finns.
We consider it necessary for the state to assume responsibility for historic injustices, such the assimilation policies in boarding schools that violated human rights and discrimination based on ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.
We welcome the adoption of the Act on the Sámi Parliament last summer. The new act will improve the ability for the Sámi Parliament to participate in and influence decision-making on matters concerning the Sámi. Other legislation concerning the Sámi must be coordinated with the new Act on the Sámi Parliament.
It is good to see that the Government has already reacted to the Commission’s work by appointing a parliamentary working group. The Commission report must also be brought to the attention of Parliament as a whole.
The Commission wishes to draw attention to the fragmented nature of the preparation of Sámi affairs in the Government. In our view, it is important for the state to commit to a long-term and consistent Sámi policy in order to strengthen Sámi policy.
With this in mind, we propose that a unit coordinating Sámi affairs, headed by the State Secretary for the Sámi, be established in the Prime Minister’s Office. The Government shall appoint the State Secretary for the Sámi after consulting with the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Saami Siida Council. The State Secretary for the Sámi must be supported by an expert group consisting of representatives appointed by ministries, the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Saami Siida Council. We proposes that the Government prepare a report to Parliament every parliamentary term on how the rights of the Sámi have been strengthened.
For the truth and reconciliation process to be successful, it is important to increase awareness and understanding of the Sámi as Finland’s only Indigenous people. It is time to right the wrongs and injustices done to the Sámi people. We hope that our work will open the way for reconciliation so that Finland’s two peoples, the Finns and the Sámi, can live together in good cooperation with one another.