Finland – AIL: Down With Imperialism and the Patriarchy!
We hereby share a statement published by the Women’s Commission of Anti-imperialist League – Finland on October 31.
The 25th of November is the International Day Against Violence Against Women. The day started in Latin America when three sisters resisting Trujillo’s dictatorship were murdered by the State in the Dominican Republic. The day is a great day of struggle in different parts of the world, especially in Latin America, but this day is already observed in Finland as well. The Women’s Commission of AIL-Finland wants to acknowledge this day here as well to raise the question of violence against women in our “home country”, and also to show internationalist solidarity to our comrades in the countries in which the meaning of this day has already grown great.
WHO reports that around one in three women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence in their intimate partner relationship and/or outside of it. According to one report by the UN, in 2024 around 50 thousand women and girls were killed by an intimate partner or family member. This means one every ten minutes. We must also consider that statistics can not tell us everything. There is certainly countless cases that we will never know about.
When it comes to the question of violence against women, it is clear that Finland is in no way innocent. According to current estimates Finland is the least safe country in the EU for women, and over half (57%) of women in Finland have experienced physical violence, sexual violence or threats. In addition to this, one in three have experienced physical violence, threat of physical violence or sexual violence in an intimate partner relationship. Eeva.fi reports that in 2025 at least 20 women were killed in Finland, and in 2026 the number is already at 18 by the end of October. At least one of the cases has also happened very publicly in front of the masses: on the 18th of July in Kontula in Helsinki a man stabbed a woman to death near the metro station.
The State of Finland, Finnish imperialism, claims to be a herald of equality, but it is clear it does not care about women. Why is it that in so many cases it does not react until the woman is dead? It is also not so that the violence is unknown of. Also Finland has cases where women have reported the violence they experience, but they have still ended up killed. The police has even gotten a notice from the Deputy Chancellor of Justice as a consequence of such a case at least once. The Finnish police have also consistently treated intimate partner violence as a plaintiff’s offense, even though the law has mandated since 2011 that it must itself initiate an investigation when the victim and perpetrator are or have been in an intimate partner relationship.
Even though Finnish imperialism ignores violence against women, it doesn’t hesitate to pretend to care when it can get something out of it. For example, it seeks to use this question to divide the working class when it provokes racism by putting the responsibility of violence against women onto the oppressed nations and peoples. Violence against women is apparently imported from the Middle East and Africa, or alternatively it is a problem of the Romani people. It appears only as “honor violence,” which apparently is not a problem in the native population. In reality Finnish men are just as capable of this violence as anyone else. We must not accept this racist attack and instead we should see the situation for what it is and struggle for stronger unity among the working class against Finnish imperialism.
There is attempts to explain and justify violence against women with all kinds of nonsense. Some claim that if a woman would’ve just dressed herself more properly or behaved more nicely then nothing would’ve happened to her. Men apparently live according to animalistic instincts and can not help themselves when they rape or kill. The truth is that the basis of violence against women is in the patriarchy. The basis of the patriarchy is found in private property, which continues to exist today in the final stage of capitalism, imperialism. As long as imperialism and the patriarchy exist, equality between the sexes is not possible in Finland or anywhere else, and we can not hope for violence against women to end. This requires that we build a strong anti-imperialist movement, into which we also mobilize women to struggle for their own emancipation and liberation.
We see how the idea of feminine nature is spread in different forms to suppress the justified anger and combativeness of women. There are attempts to make women passive, submissive and into objects of sexual desire. Some claim that women’s place is with housework and childcare, that they are naturally more nurturing and gentle. Others make the woman out to be a poor victim who needs saving. Then there are those who spread the disgusting lie of “sexual liberation”, that women should sell themselves and their sexuality to men, since prostitution is so liberating.
Feminine nature does not exist. Women do not have an innate nature. At most they have learned habits that this decaying society pushes onto them. We want to unleash the revolutionary fury of women and organize it into struggle against imperialism and patriarchy. Not only are women capable of this, what it is more important is that women’s participation is necessary. We can already see great examples of this around the world, for example in the most advanced examples of anti-imperialist struggle: the New Democratic Revolutions in Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines, in which women are also a necessary part of the struggle. It is also worth mentioning the harsh struggle against imperialism throughout Latin America, especially in Brazil. This struggle has already made its way into Finland, and it must gain a stronger hold so that we can give even harder blows to the enemy in our “own country”.
Down with imperialism and the patriarchy! Long live the International Day Against Violence Against Women!
Women’s Commission of Anti-Imperialist League – Finland
31.10.26
