African diaspora in Finland

[12][13] Between the 1900s and the 1970s, the few Africans in Finland were mostly either students (for example from Nigeria and Ethiopia), political exiles from South Africa or people married to Finns.

[19] Nowadays most people of African ancestry come to Finland from Africa, but many have also come from the United States, Latin America and other European countries.

[25] Citizens of African countries who received Finnish citizenship by year:[26] People born in Africa who received Finnish citizenship by year:[27] From 1990 to 2013, a total of 14,481 African citizens sought asylum in Finland, which was 22.4% out of the total of 64,536 asylum seekers.

[36][37][38][39] In 2020, Kelly Kalonji [fi], Miss Helsinki [fi] 2013 and celebrity, and Obi-West Utchaychukwu, the editor-in-chief of Diaspora Glitz Magazine, founded the beauty pageant The Face of African Queen for young women of African ancestry living in Finland.

[42] In 2010, Yle broadcast the three-episode documentary television series Afro-Suomen historia ("The history of Afro-Finland") about early Afro-Finns.

[6][10] The multimedia Ruskeat Tytöt [fi] ("Brown Girls") focuses on Afro-Finns and other people of colour in Finland.

[43][44][45] Its six-episode Afrosuomen historiaa etsimässä ("In search of history of Afro-Finland") podcast's first episode was broadcast on Radio Helsinki [fi] in 2017.

Finnish skinheads perpetrated attacks against Africans, and especially the city of Joensuu in eastern Finland grew to be an infamous center of racism [fi].

[48][49][50][51][52] According to the study "Being Black in the EU" by the Fundamental Rights Agency published in 2018, 63% of Afro-Finns in Finland had experienced racist harassment, which had appeared as offensive gestures, comments, threats or violence.

This was the highest percentage of the twelve European Union member states[h] that were included in the study, much higher than for example in Malta which was 20%.

[53][54] A report published in 2020 by the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman [fi] found that four out of five people with an African background had experienced racial discrimination in Finland due to their skin colour.