Daily Discrimination Stories

anonymous

May 2, 2025 / Race, At work, In public, Immigrant, At school/uni, Near home

As a middle eastern, I have been living in Finland, around Uusima, for about two years now. At first, I thought I was just being paranoid. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong or illegal, so why were people staring at me? Then it escalated to them even taking pictures. I started to wonder if I was dressing inappropriately, but having lived in many countries before, I knew my style wasn’t unusual. It was only after reading stories about even Finns who “stick out” in any way and face similar treatment that I realized this wasn’t just me.
Another problem arose at work: I was being excluded and disrespected. Suddenly, my boss accused me of being hostile. These things happened simultaneously, making me question my own sanity. The only reason I knew I wasn’t losing my mind was because I found others with similar stories. If you stand out, the collective society can be hostile. This is deeply troubling.

anonymous

May 2, 2025 / Race, At work, Immigrant, Online, Language

I work in customer service over chats. The company I am working for is not based in Finland but I was hired to do help cutomers in Finnish.
Before anyone enters the chat they provide some info about their request to the bot.
One particular customer was using English with the bot but I saw his name and recognised it as a Finnish one so I started communicating in Finnish.
He accused me of not being a real Finn and asked me who is the Finnish president so I can prove to him I am indeed a ”real Finn”.
Other times customers with impossible request accuse me of not understanding and switch to English even though the answer remains the same and I get anxious of losing my job.
I am a woman and use a very regular Finnish male’s name as my avatar.

Anonymous

April 8, 2025 / Race, Immigrant, Language

I love this country, I do. I have a child here. I met my fiancé here. But after almost 20 years of struggle to secure job, not even talking about career towards which I have degree, I am done. Being black in Finland was always tough but as it progresses with my stay here it is getting worse. Companies to which you get into if you are “lucky” will exploit you by giving impossible times to clean places, they will cut the hours as you are staring at the schedule! They will call themselves friendly and respectful until you call them out on their own behaviors! They hardly question themselves but easy to judge and make it an immigrant issue.
I am tired, from failed healthcare system to no stability when it comes to job, through mistreatment from every corner – including fellow black people! Instead of helping each other they are making it even worse! Everyone acting hungry and thinking of how to use someone to their own benefit. I am exhausted of fighting this battle with the system. Many tried and failed many tried and moved nowhere in their lives. Finland will make sure to trap you in – if you are sane you will become insane. No pint of language will help you unless you are into coding, IT or gaming… but even with that you will always feel you are not enough.

anonymous

April 7, 2025 / Race, At work

I live in the center of Finland for 3 and half years now. I’m a PhD student here. I have been many times being called N words. This feeling is not really good. If we have been invited here as a working force or educational group to work in one of the highest institutions of a country which is university. Then why the government has not considered the infrastructure and cultural acceptance before accepting us?

If the people here do not accept and can not truly accept us that is totally fine, but my big concern and many of my friends is that if we are not accepted here then why In the first place these institutions give grants, admissions, and working scholarships to us to be part of their project for years while not even feeling a part of human being in society.

Someone

April 7, 2025 / Race, At work, In business, In public, Near home

Older women especially in my experience, almost most of the Tokmani shopping centers that I go to buy my daily groceries the older ladies who work in the counter look at us in a very exaggerated way. Narrowing their eyes and behaving in a sense that we are a piece of extra thing at the counter. But immediately after they do our job. They laugh smile and say with open face hello to the Finnish costumers. This feeling in a daily regular basis is so hard. I wonder if the managers of these big companies even pay attention to these things.

Thomas

March 26, 2025 / Gender, Race, Sexual identity, In public

Finland is praised as the happiest country, and while it has given me good opportunities, I’ve never felt a true sense of belonging. This isn’t about race—I have white skin—yet I’ve noticed a lack of openness toward immigrants. Many Finns carry a quiet superiority, a passive-aggressive attitude that says, I am better than you.

One night, while waiting for a bus near a nightclub, every Finnish man who passed made rude comments to me in Finnish. Then, a drunk man got so close that cameras couldn’t capture him. Thinking he wanted to say something normal, I smiled. Instead, he whispered:

“You piece of worthless human, go back to your land. Don’t even think about hitting on a Finnish woman. They are not yours.”

Then, he punched me in the stomach—deliberately, knowing what he was doing. That night I went to the police man who was 5 meters from
This incident he didn’t even recognize or pay attention to me. I am sure if I was Finnish and that guy was immigrant he would have deported and ended up jail.

Another matter is that during the day when I randomly pass over teenagers they keep telling bad Finnish slang to me and laugh. At that time I was thinking ok this is teenage hood but it clearly reveals what they parents are saying to them about immigrants

Finland is calm safe with high quality of education but during my time I could never feel home or sense of community and belonging.

Anonymous

March 26, 2025 / Race, Immigrant

I was visiting a night club in Helsinki. Everything was fine, until I decided to visit the toilet.

These were gender neutral toilets, and there was a big line. I got in the line, but the lady infront of me starting pointing her palm at me, and saying nope. This is not for you. I replied, this is gender neutral. I can be here.

She kept repeating that. Then after a back and forth of 3-4 times. she was like yeah ok.

She then asked my name. I replied. But she said, no. Its Aladdin. And starting laughing. I was taken back by that. She realized she had said something racist so she acknowledged that herself. But I didn’t feel good so I left the line.

My mood was immediately down. I left the club after that. and I kept thinking about it for days.

These small day to day wounds can pile up, and really have an effect on you in the long term. Its death by a thousand cuts.

anonymous

October 16, 2024 / Race, In public, Immigrant

Actually I’m not so sure if it’s discrimination or I’m just too sensetive, maybe it’s like microdiscrimination.
One day, I went to Kontti in Lappeenranta, when I was about to pay, the casher guy suddenly put away his smile and didn’t say “moi” to me. I still said “moi” “kiitos” and “moi moi” to him but he didn’t have any response – just gave me the receipt. But he chatted in smile with the last customer 🙁

Anonymous

March 11, 2024 / Race, In public, Immigrant, Language, Government agency

When I gave birth (almost 10 years ago), we weren’t given a private room as requested. I had to share a room and my husband (Finnish) was only allowed to stay during visiting hours which was just a few hours per day. I basically had to fend for myself in a hospital where most of the nurses didn’t speak (or refused to speak) English. I wasn’t told that there were snacks available for new moms to help replenish the energy spent from breastfeeding. I was also never told how to check if my child was able to get milk from me.
A starving newborn and half starved new mother should never happen in a hospital.
Fortunately, towards the end of our 2nd day a nurse who spoke English was horrified when she checked in on me and the baby and gave us the nourishment we were badly needing.
Giving birth is already a traumatising experience. Recovery shouldn’t have these extra stress and discrimination.

Anonymous

February 9, 2024 / Race, Sexual identity, In business, Immigrant, Language

Reading through other stories I am saddened at the amount of discrimination foreigners face in Finland… But I am not surprised!
1) Personal observation:
I am a non-EU foreigner in Finland. Before Finland I lived in another EU country which is kinda known for being racist and intolerant. It is unacceptable what foreigners and LGBTQ community face in there. BUT at least a lot of the instances of discrimination are open and manifested in the daily acts and interactions of locals. Pretty much “you get what you see”. Here in Finland it is relatively not as open. Locals tend to keep their true beliefs to themselves, and manifest it via closed doors, be it recruitment, elections or other decision-making instances. And when there is a report saying a substantial amount of voters do not want to elect Haavisto as president due to his sexual orientation, many people are shocked.

2) Personal experience:
I may not have faced confrontational discrimination like other foreigners do, but there was one very explicit instance. I have a very non-Finnish name. A couple of years back I applied for a job post for which I was qualified and it did not require Finnish language. We had a nice round one with the recruitment agency, but then I was told the hiring manager decided to pursue other candidates. No problem, moved on. But some time later I discover that a summer intern that I worked with got the same position. See, we had similar education level, but I had much more experience that the job clearly required. But somehow the hiring manager decided to skip my name and opted for a more “familiar” name. God bless them!

Still, I love Finland and it’s a wonderful place in many ways. But it’s important to bring awareness to the difficulties foreigners face here. Cheers!