Taina Cederström, an instructor at a local center for asylum seekers, told the newspaper that women had been attempting to buy sex from underage refugees at the Helsinki railway station during Christmas, by offering the boys €20 for their services.
She said she was certain about at least two such cases, but added that there could have been more.
The employees of the Diakonissalaitos Foundation, which runs the center, found out about the case after they started wondering where the refugee boys got the money for cigarettes and other things. Questions asked by the refugee boys also raised their suspicions.
"One boy once asked, if it's the case in Finland, that women are allowed to kiss whenever they want."
Taina Cederström said that she could not recall anything like that happening in Finland before; 30- and 40 year-old Finnish women, apparently intelligent and wealthy, now come to the station to buy sex from teenage boys.
”We are trying to explain to the asylum seekers how they should treat women and this is what we see happening now,” she said.
Cederström also fears that the young migrants will now spend more time hanging out at the sation where they could get into trouble. She said that they could be offered to sell drugs for money.
On Thursday Finnish newspapers wrote about another sex scandal, this time between a female Red Cross worker and an asylum seeker.
The head of the Finnish Red Cross, Pekka Annala, said that sexual relations between FRC workers and asylum seekers were an absolute taboo, adding that the immigration authorities would stay out of it as the case was strictly an “internal affair” for the organization.
The sad irony of this is that on January 11, the Finnish Immigration Service launched a mobile learning course about sexual equality and sexual health and rights suitable for all asylum seekers. The easy-to-use service is currently available in English; other languages will be added in the future.
The course topics are Finnish legislation and relationships, sexuality and the act of sex, sex education, sexual violence and harassment and taking care of sexual health.
The purpose of the course is to give asylum seekers information about equality and sexuality, general rights and obligations as well as legislation and manners in Finland.
