PAM Magazine 8/2014: A long way to Tampere

He did not want to leave Senegal. Idrissa Mbengue’s daughter Amy was still very young; she had just been given her name. His own market stall in the port city of Ziguinchor provided a living; it was much better than in many of his previous jobs. But his eldest brother and a step-brother wanted to go to Europe, and they put pressure on him. The brothers would talk about a better future. In Spain, they had heard, there was a demand for labour on the farms, for instance in the orange groves.

“We imagined that we would all go to the countryside and there would be a lot of work, and we would do whatever came our way,” In a café in Tampere Mbengue now recalls the events of May 2006.

“I met a guy who told me about a boat.” The trip would not be expensive, but rather cheap: 1,300 euros.

In Senegal in West Africa, this is a large sum, but smugglers usually charge far greater sums, say 4,000 euros, for such journeys.

The plan could not be shared with anyone, or the trip might have to be cancelled. Not with his own mother, or the mother of his child, or his siblings. Well, one brother knew about the plans, but he was the only one. It was not until the last few days before departure that Mbengue decided to go.

The journey on the unstable and crowded vessel took nine days.

“There were more than sixty of us, and we all slept on the boat sitting upright,” Mbengue says.

Over these days they would sit and wait and talk about their plans for the future.

On the seventh day of their journey, they ran out of water. The travellers believed they were going to die, and many wept. Mbengue tried to raise their spirits by singing. Finally, on the second day after they ran out of water, he saw something that might indicate that they would be saved: a seagull. They must be close to land. The others did not believe him at first, but soon more birds could be seen. And then the shoreline. It was the tourist island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands that belong to Spain. The travellers’ legs were too numb to carry them, but they were saved.

Did they all make it? Mbengue does not want to talk about it. In any case, he and the other travellers were locked up in a reception centre, which Mbengue refers to as a “prison camp”. He spent 40 days there.

To work at the age of seven

 Why did Idrissa Mbengue leave Senegal? To answer this question, we need to go back in time. Mbenque was born in West Senegal in the riverside town of Kaolack, with a population of just under 200,000. He had two sister and three brothers, but because his father had three other wives in addition to Mbengue’s mother, there were altogether more than twenty children in the family.

His father died when Mbengue was still small, so his mother had to support the children. He started his working career at the age of seven at the town market, as he found this more interesting than sitting in a classroom. At the market, Mbengue helped his grandmother to sell all kinds of goods.

“I did not go to school, just Koran school,” Mbengue recounts. He never learned to read.

Later, from his teenage years on, he had to search far and wide for work, even in the neighbouring countries of Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Mbengue worked in carpentry and metalwork and drove a moped taxi. One job lasted for maybe two years, and then it was time to find another one. Before the trip to the Canary Islands, he had set up his own market stall in Ziguinchor.

He believed that there would be better work opportunities overseas; supporting a family on Senegalese wages was not easy.  With European wages, he might be able to help his entire extended family.

Chased by the police

The reality in Spain, however, did not match his hopes and plans. The local Red Cross receives the immigrants, but they are then taken to the “prison camp” for questioning. Oddly enough, they are then allowed to stay in the country, but they are not granted a work permit or residence permit. So they must somehow manage without.

There was no work to be found in the orange the groves, either.

“Finding a job in Spain was difficult. I started to sell watches and sunglasses at the beach and elsewhere,” Mbengue says.

Hawking is a common trade among illegal African immigrants in Spain, and it was easy to find others who had arrived earlier and could help newcomers to get started. Work usually began in the morning and only ended after midnight; in between, they only took a break to cook themselves a meal.

Later, Mbengue moved to continental Spain, first to Malaga and from there to Torrevieja, near Valencia, continuing in the same line of work. In Torrevieja, he met Elina Tuominen from Tampere, who lived there – they chatted, but according to the couple, Mbengue never sold anything to Tuominen. The next year, in 2008, they started a relationship and moved in together in Torrevieja.

Hawkers who are illegally in Spain often have to deal with the police, and as the recession began that same year, 2008, the situation got even worse. The authorities were after Mbengue every day. Sometimes, paperless immigrants are thrown into jail.

“I can’t remember how many times, maybe seven or eight,” he reflects.

Usually, he had to spend three days in jail. Sometimes, one of the police might take his money; at other times, even his goods, to sell off himself.

By ferry to the supermarket

When Tuominen returned to Finland to work, she went to the police to ask if it was possible for a partner who was living illegally in Spain to be granted a residence permit here. She was told that the permit could be applied for after they had lived together for two years. This is what they did.

However, the case did not seem to be progressing at the Finnish Immigration Service, and after receiving rude service, Tuominen decided to contact the head of the service directly. Her persistence paid off, as only a week later they were summoned to an interview in Madrid for a residence permit. Both were interviewed together and separately, as is usually the custom to expose so-called sham relationships. Mbengue received his residence permit soon afterwards. A person immigrating as a family member is also granted a work permit.

In December 2010, Mbengue could finally move to Finland. The couple travelled via Stockholm. Tuominen pulled Mbengue’s leg by claiming that from Stockholm, they would travel on a boat similar to the smuggler’s boat to Tenerife. Well, the Viking Line ferry turned out to be somewhat bigger.

A popular Finnish language class for illiterate immigrants was scheduled to start in Tampere the following month. Again, a bit of perseverance and research was required, but eventually Mbengue was able to join. He conscientiously attended three five-month courses, and also learned to read and write a bit in Finnish. He still cannot read his native language, Wolof.

“Through the course, I also got a traineeship,” Mbengue says.

He stacked shelves at a Valintatalo supermarket. An extra challenge to the work was posed by the fact that, at the time, he could not read. He managed to do the work on the basis of barcodes and the appearance of the packages, and eventually Mbengue stacked shelves in four sections instead of the original one.

200 job applications

After the course, Mbengue was unemployed, then worked for a while as a cleaner at a firm that went bankrupt and failed to pay his wages.

“It was hard to find a job, especially as I can’t read very well,” Mbengue says.

Over the years, Mbengue has applied for an estimated 200 jobs with Tuominen’s help. Many applications are not even replied to.

“Many times, we felt like giving up,” Tuominen sighs.

The couple also had to find their own way through the Finnish bureaucracy and learn to adapt to Finnish working life, as this information is not available anywhere. Without the help of a local, many things would be practically impossible. Many of Mbengue’s immigrant friends are, indeed, unemployed, despite their attempts to find a job.

Mbengue himself finally found a permanent, if part-time, job last summer at a cleaning firm in Tampere as a cleaner in the food industry. The work site is at a meat producing business.

“The work is heavy, but it’s much better than being at home,” Mbengue says.

The work involves lifting and the use of a heavy pressure washer, and it is hot at the site.

“And there’s a lot of blood,” Mbengue adds.

The working hours, from nine to three, however, are convenient, and he does not have to move between sites.

Interest in education

This summer, Mbengue has been in Finland long enough to apply for a permanent residence permit.

“It is peaceful here. In Spain and Senegal people go out more,” he says.

This is both a good and a bad thing: he does not have to fear being sent to jail now, but sometimes he misses a more lively urban scene. He does, however, like some quintessentially Finnish things like lakesides and light summer nights – and sauna, even if his first experience was anything but pleasant.

“It felt really hot and I couldn’t breathe properly.”

On this occasion, he also tried rolling in the snow at 27 degrees below freezing. In spite of this ordeal, he now likes to take a sauna almost daily.

Mbengue would gladly continue cleaning work, especially if he got a full-time job. At some stage, he might also like to return to the metalwork and carpentry he tried out in Senegal, if he could get the appropriate training. He would also like to learn to read better, so that he can get a driving licence.

His daughter Amy is now eight and has started school in Senegal. Mbengue and Tuominen send money to her and her mother every month. Regarding Amy, Idrissa Mbengue has one more heartfelt wish for the future. It would require at least arranging a passport and birth certificate, visiting the French embassy in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and most likely a long wait, and even so, success would not be certain. But his wish is clear:

“I would like my child to be able to move here.”

 Tuomas Lehto

 Everyone is entitled to an information package

 PAM magazine has related several sad stories about immigrants in Finnish working life over the years: underpayment, long working weeks without holidays, and huge sums paid to mediators to get into the country. Often, at least one party to the story complains of a lack of information on the rules of Finnish working life.

According to the Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration, the authorities must provide immigrants with information on their rights and obligations in working life and society. The Ministry of Employment and the Economy (MEE) has the coordination responsibility for ensuring that this information is provided.

“The authorities are obliged to provide guidance and advice in a manner appropriate for immigrants, i.e. in their own language or via an interpreter, if necessary. By law, each immigrant also receives an information package on Finland, the ‘Welcome to Finland’ guide,” says Kristina Stenman, Director-General of the Migration Department at MEE.

The guide is compact – there are only four pages on working life. Stenman also concedes that it has not reached all immigrants, as especially those moving within the EU do not necessarily have much contact with the authorities.

Information can also be found on the websites of the Employment and Economic Development Centres and the Finnish Immigration Service, but they are of little use to illiterate immigrants, like Idrissa Mbengue when he moved to Finland. According to Stenman, they can get information on Finnish society and working life if they have dealings with the employment authorities or participate in integration training, for example.

“If they go through that process, they should receive information, even if it is not very detailed.”

When an immigrant arriving from outside the EU/ETA applies for a residence permit for a worker, the authorities check that a job has indeed been offered; in most cases, this means that there is a work contract. The form requested from the employer asks details about the salary, annual leave and the applicable collective agreement. The company can also be requested for additional information, for example, a certificate of tax debts or a certificate on statutory insurance premiums paid.

Additional information: migri.fi/working_in_finland; guidetoworkinginfinland.fi"