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Past and present female government ministers meet in Helsinki for launch of website presenting all of Finland’s female ministers

Government Communications Department
Publication date 1.12.2017 10.33
Press release 561/2017

More than 30 Finnish female ministers will meet in Helsinki on Friday 1 December when the Prime Minister's Office launches a website about women as ministers to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence. Never before have so many female ministers been assembled together.

The meeting of female ministers is historic. Half of the 67 female ministers alive will be able to attend the event. Altogether 87 women have served as ministers in Finnish Governments.The ministers present will include former Finnish president Tarja Halonen, who served as Foreign Minister in the 1990s, and former Prime Minister and current Member of the European Parliament Anneli Jäätteenmäki. The ministers will be received by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and State Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office Paula Lehtomäki, herself a long-serving minister.

“Equality is a core value for us in Finland. Finland was the first country to grant full political rights to women. It is natural, therefore, that women have taken their place beside men at the top of politics. We in Finland can be proud about it,” Prime Minister Sipilä said.

Other minister who will be attending the event include Sinikka Laisaari (former Mönkare), who served as minister uninterruptedly for more than ten years for a total of 3,817 days; Sirkka-Liisa Anttila, the longest-serving female Member of Parliament in Finland; Elisabeth Rehn, Minister of Equality Affairs and the first woman in the world to serve as Minister of Defence; and Riitta Uosukainen, the first woman to act as the Speaker of Parliament.

The event is organised to launch the website Women as ministers in independent Finland at governments.fi. It presents all women who have served as ministers in independent Finland from Miina Sillanpää to Annikka Saarikko. Miina Sillanpää was the first Finnish woman to become a government minister in 1926, while the most recent minister Annika Saarikko started as Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services in July 2017.

Annika Saarikko, Minister of Local Government and Public Reforms Anu Vehviläinen and Minister of the Interior Paula Risikko, among others, will represent the current Government in the event. Risikko, with her 3,491 days as minister, is the second longest-serving female minister in Finland.

The new website presents the ministers and their achievements and gives their details and photos, video interviews and audio recordings with them. It is available in Finnish, Swedish and English at hallitukset.fi, regeringar.fi and governments.fi.

Inquiries: Marko Ruonala, Project Manager, Government Communications Department, tel. +358 50 522 8233, marko.ruonala(at)vnk.fi

Update on July 15th 2021: Governments.fi has been closed.

 

 
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