Allegations and suspicions have circulated for years that foreign berry-pickers working in Finnish forests were being exploited and subjected to conditions of human trafficking.
On this basis, Finland's foreign ministry has announced that it will no longer issue visas to berry-pickers from Thailand, Cambodia or Myanmar — as a means of preventing further exploitation and abuse.
Tiina Lundell, of Yle's investigative journalism unit MOT, tells APN that the pickers are recruited from impoverished areas of Southeast Asia with the promise of earning good money.
"All these pickers come to Finland because they think that it will help them create a better life for themselves, for their kids, for their parents," Lundell explains, but adds that her investigation revealed some workers end up in even worse financial circumstances than they were before they arrived.
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The berry-picking visas had previously been issued under Finland's 'Everyone's Rights' law — allowing the workers to come to Finland on tourist permits — which Jussi Tanner of the foreign ministry describes to APN as an "anomaly".
"If you ask me, whether it will be sustainable to continue a system where you haul a vulnerable workforce from the other side of the world, paying an absolute bare minimum to them, and at the same time base that industry on a creative interpretation of Everyone's Rights, I think that system as a whole has come to its conclusion," Tanner says.
The ministry's decision to suspend visas has led to fears that the vast majority of Finland's summer berry crop — a traditional staple of the Finnish diet — will go unpicked this year, or else that prices will rise significantly.
"I doubt that Finnish people want to pay more for the berries they are used to getting for really cheap," Tiina Lundell says, further noting that people in Finland seem unaware of the human cost involved in getting berries onto store shelves.
"People don't understand how much work goes into harvesting berries, even though we have been talking about these exploitations for years. Maybe people would rather not know about this problem," she tells the show.
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This week's show was presented by Ronan Browne and Zena Iovino. The sound engineer was Joonatan Kotila.
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