Sterilization of Roma in Finland

(Mirror.)

In the 1950s and 1960s, [Roma] were proportionally the subject of considerably more sterilization orders and permissions when compared with the rest of the population – at that time, they accounted for approximately 1.2 permille of the Finnish population. The increasing numbers of [Roma] being sterilized, both in terms of the sex of the subject and the year during which the procedure occurred, can be observed in Table 1. Under the second Sterilization Act, [Romani] women received sterilization orders approximately eight times more often and permissions approximately 26 times more often than did other Finns, proportionally speaking. Likewise, the proportion of men (4 permille) increased slightly as well.