News agency STT sent out a questionnaire in October to Finland's 200 Members of Parliament, asking them if they had experienced or seen bullying in their workplace.
Of the 65 MPs who responded, 18 reported having been personally bullied in their job, and 24 reported having witnessed bullying in the workplace. Of the 18 who said they were themselves targeted, 13 were women, four were men, and one refused to reveal his or her gender.
The MPs who experienced bullying said that they had been subject to personal insults during plenary sessions and meetings, and some reported an ongoing campaign of name-calling and the spread of false information on social media.
The MPs reporting bullying said the disrespectful behaviour has a major influence on the work atmosphere in parliament. Favouritism also hurt people's motivation, they said.
Other parliamentarians responding to the questionnaire had nothing but good things to say about their work community. These respondents replied that the teasing and bullying is "not a real problem", with some suspecting that certain MPs are just more easily offended by criticism.
Name-calling and belittling
STT spoke on the phone with a few of the MPs about their experiences.
Green MP Ozan Yanar said that he has been called names at parliament. He said that after he raised an interjection during a September session, another MP leaned over and called him "little boy" several times. This was followed by a third MP tweeting that he is of the same opinion as the name-caller and mentioning Yanar by name.
"I found it ridiculous that when they ran out of arguments, they tried to look down on me because of my age," he said.
Yanar adds that he has also faced blatant racism in the halls of parliament, in addition to confronting indirect prejudices from time to time.
Social Democrat MP Joona Räsänen, who's 31, said that he has also noticed that some older MPs tend to underestimate younger representatives.
"During some discussions, I have noticed that they are a bit like 'What do those youngsters know?' – typical belittling behaviour," Räsänen said.
Taunter is often from another party
Among the MPs who said they had been bullied or witnessed bullying, 15 said that the MPs doing the taunting were a representative of a different political party. Five said it was a member of the same party. Six more said the bullying person was not an MP, but a member of the parliamentary office staff, for example. One respondent admitted to being a bully.
Centre-right National Coalition Party MP Veera Ruoho said that she became the target of a social media bullying campaign that included hate mail and threatening phone calls after she left the populist Finns Party for the NCP.
"People told me that they would do their utmost to make sure I was not re-elected; that they would start a campaign to prevent it," she said.
Finns Party MP Leena Meri said her own party colleagues have interrupted her mid-speech at public events in the past, causing the audience to start laughing. She said she has also been ridiculed and belittled by her fellow Finns Party MPs when presenting questions on the parliamentary floor.
