No mention of Islam nor Muslims, the mediating facts are sanitized from the article…
– Their threat is that when one knows at home how a ” bad woman ” has tried to become independent or divorced from her husband in Finland, her position becomes really bad. A man may have a new wife, and a woman – because she has not obeyed her husband and family – will be thrown into the mud of society
Laura teaches Finnish to motivated immigrant women, but then they disappear somewhere – “They are subjugated in one way or another”
According to Laura Tikkanen, a Finnish language teacher, immigrant women need information about their own rights. Many people are surprised, for example, that under Finnish law, one’s wife cannot be forced to have sex. RONI LEHTI
– You can see it through the eyes. That not everything is all right, says Laura Tikkanen, a Finnish teacher from Turku.
She is concerned about the situation of immigrant women. Tikkanen, who has taught immigrants for 10 years, faces many people at work who want to study and work. Many still stay home after the courses to take care of children and home.
– It is difficult for women to seek and find help because they do not have the knowledge, courage and contacts and no idea about their rights.
– Quite a few have difficulties in their marriage. They are subjugated in one way or another, either mentally or physically.
Tikkanen says that women usually come to Finnish courses motivated. They learn Finnish, go on an internship and dream of a profession. At school, they also become empowered, that is, learn to see that they have roles other than being a wife and a mother.
– But home can be different. Women often do not know or are allowed to think from their own point of view, but they carry the pressure of community and family on their shoulders. The power of the family extends far to Finland. A man may believe and obey his family, and dare not question its messages and traditions, even if he would.
Thus, a promising beginning is often followed by a disappointing end.
– After the course, many are no longer seen. They are likely to stay with the children and the home, even if they want something else.
One day, a woman’s husband showed up to her lessons, asked for her in the hallway, and after a moment, lifted her up like a rug and announced that they were going home now. Tikkanen grabbed the man by the shoulder and demanded that he lower the woman as it happened.
– It opened a huge can of worms. She finally started talking and told that she had been married in her home country to an older man with whom she had come to Finland with. The husband beat her because the woman did not become pregnant.
According to Tikkanen, the story ended with a happy ending. The woman was taken to a shelter and she is now again, happily remarried.
One women’s day, she discussed the rights of women with the class and told, for example, that even if she was married, her husband was not forced to have sex.
– The whole class laughed at it, they couldn’t believe it, Tikkanen says.
– But some saw that they only laughed with the group. There was sadness in his eyes.
