The case of an Estonian sailing vessel bringing illegal immigrants to Helsinki on Sunday night has prompted discussion about sentences handed down by Finnish courts to the organisers of illegal immigration.

   

A crew of two Estonian Russians attempted to smuggle in eight Kurds on an 11-metre yacht that has visited Finland several times this summer. This may well turn out to be a case of professional human smuggling.

   

"On the Finnish scale this is a serious incident", says Inspector Per Ehrsten from the National Bureau of Investigation, Finland's central criminal police. According to Ehrsten, the number of similar illegal immigration attempts by water can be expected to rise in the future.

   

The police assert that Finland is a tempting country to organise illegal immigration, because in the event of things going wrong, the sentences given in Finland are the lightest in the EU.

   

The maximum sentence is two years' imprisonment, when elsewhere in Europe and even in the other Nordic Countries the maximum prison term is much longer, in some countries over ten years.

   

According to Ehrsten it is downright silly that the penalties in Finland are so ridulously light.

Even in the Ministry of the Interior

, the Department of Police expects a change in the law that will bring much stiffer punishments for organisers of illegal immigration.

   

So far this year, 22 cases of organising illegal immigration have come to the attention of law enforcement officials. This indicates a yearly total that will be close to the average of the past couple of years, between 40 and 60.

   

Usually illegal immigrants approach Finland from the directions of Russia or Estonia, either by themselves or assisted by someone. Some organisers of illegal immigration live in Finland. The police have previously uncovered a Finnish-based Kurd organisation that brought other Kurds to Finland through Tallinn, Estonia.

There may be changes

to the penal code as early as this coming spring. The new Parliament will be given a package of proposed new legislation concerning human trade and smuggling, and possibly harder sentences for organisers of illegal immigration. At present the Finnish legislation does not even recognise trafficking in humans.

   

As a common reform the EU has already drawn up an outline for legislation concerning human trade. It is to become effective from the beginning of 2004. Above all the law defines punishments for persons engaged in international trafficking in women and children for the porn industry.

   

Furthermore, the EU is preparing a directive on the harmonisation of laws covering voluntary human smuggling. In conjunction with its handling of this motion, the Finnish Parliament also plans to discuss changes in the penal system concerning the scale of sanctions against organisers of illegal immigration.