The Barents Observer reported on August 31 that the Sámi Parliament in Finland has urged the government to extend funding for the psychosocial support unit Uvjj – Uvjâ – Uvja beyond 2025. The request comes as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 2021 to examine discrimination and assimilation policies targeting the Sámi people, approaches the end of its mandate. The Parliament urged the government to secure budget support through 2026 and adopt legislation by 2027 to make the service permanent. (The Barents Observer)

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) mandate nears completion, the Sámi Parliament’s push to extend the TRC’s psychosocial support unit can be considered a test of Finland’s commitment to a comprehensive transitional justice process. The unit, created to provide culturally grounded, Sámi-language mental health support during testimony, has been lauded by the UN Special Rapporteur on Transitional Justice and the Council of Europe, who recommended that the unit would be established as a permanent structure with adequate resources (pending impact assessment). Around 10,000 Sámi live in Finland, of which 60% live outside the legally defined homeland, which is exactly where access to Sámi-language services is the thinnest. Uvja’s model of care provision in North Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi fills that gap and helps mitigate the retraumatisation that truth processes can trigger when support systems are absent or generic. As the TRC prepares to publish its findings in 2026, demand for follow-up counselling is likely to rise rather than fall. Moreover, a permanent Uvja would signal that Finland’s Arctic governance transcends purely extractive debates to include Indigenous well-being and institutional resilience. It would also help narrow a credibility gap as Finland is yet to ratify the International Labor Organization Convention 169 on Indigenous rights, a benchmark considered by many as long overdue. While ratification remains politically sensitive, entrenching culturally competent services is a tangible step that strengthens trust and legitimacy of state-Sámi relations after the mandate of the TRC comes to a close. (Council of Europe, Queen’s University, The Barents Observer, University of Birmingham)