The convention sets clear duties for member states, meaning that Finland has also committed to them as of 7 June 2025.
I would like to highlight one key section of the convention:
Each Member shall identify the sectors or occupations and work arrangements in which workers and other persons concerned are more exposed to violence and harassment, taking measures to effectively protect such persons (Article 8).
The fact is that the workplaces where members of Tehy work are becoming less and less safe every year. The number of reports of violent situations and crime made to Tehy is increasing steadily.
A paramedic responding to an emergency call to treat a patient is knifed.
This is not a matter of individual observations, because this development is also borne out in official statistics.According to the Finnish Workers' Compensation Center, accidents in the social welfare and health care sector are increasing year by year, and the most common anomaly preceding sick leave caused by an accident at work is violence. Data from Statistics Finland also confirms that violence has increased significantly in the social welfare and health care sector in recent years.
Examples are not hard to come by: A paramedic responding to an emergency call to treat a patient is knifed. A practical nurse is beaten by a young person who has lost their grip on life management. A nurse trying to help someone make an appointment receives a death threat instead. A medical laboratory technologist trying to take a sample ends up on one month’s sick leave due to being assaulted.
Violence is commonplace at many workplaces of Tehy members
It is bewildering that the Government proposal has the following to say about enacting Article 8 of the ILO convention: ”Finland must be deemed to already meet the stipulations of the article, meaning that enacting the article does not require changes to legislation.”
In which alternate reality has the Government drafted this assessment?
The social welfare and health care sector is clearly one of the fields where the risk of violence is heightened – it is precisely the kind of field whose protection is the responsibility of the state according to the ILO Convention. After the convention takes force in Finland, the state has an active duty to implement tangible measures to protect employees in the social welfare and health care sector. According to the Government proposal, however, this is not necessary.
Tehy demands action to prevent violence in the social welfare and health care sector
The ILO Convention must not be sidelined as a mere symbolic gesture or a “feather in the cap."We need clear, impactful and binding measures.
Tehy has proposed measures such as expanding the criminal offence of ‘violent resistance to a public official’ to cover all employees in the social welfare and health care sector. We have highlighted this issue in our Black-Eyed Day campaign against violence experienced by carers.
It would also be of paramount importance to the social welfare and health care sector to draft its own binding standards for safe and violence-free work that all workplaces should abide by.
These measures would be the least that we can do for those who care for us all – often at the cost of their own health and safety.
An opinion piece by Tehy's Chairperson Millariikka Rytkönen and lawyer Inka Lehtinen, addressing violence against nurses, has been published on newspaper opinion pages.