Be in solidarity with asylum seekers and undocumented migrants, don’t forget to sign the Lupa Elää citizens’ initiative.

Lupa elää (Permit to live) citizens’ initiative proposes the “issuing of a 4-year continuous residence permit for people who have applied for asylum in Finland before 1.1.2017 and have not been issued continuous residence permits”. The purpose of the proposed amendment to the law is to formalise – and in many ways also stabilise – the residence of foreign nationals who have applied for asylum and who have lived in Finland for a long and uninterrupted period as asylum seekers, undocumented migrants or with temporary residence permits. At the time of writing, the initiative has more than 27,000 signatures and needs to reach 50,000 before the first of May this year in order to be considered by the Parliament.

Signing the citizens’ initiative is a concrete way to help asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants by preventing them from ending up in a situation where their legal and social status is unclear, uncertain and vulnerable and where they can easily be exploited and become victims of crimes such as human trafficking.

Read our opinion piece in HBL (in Swedish) here.

And in Kaleva (in Finnish) here.

Sign the initiative here.