Finland must rectify injustices committed against the indigenous Sami people, a truth and reconciliation commission said on Thursday as it finalised a report after four years' work.
The commission collected testimonials from nearly 400 Sami and dozens of experts to shed light on discrimination and human rights violations perpetrated by the Finnish state, including an assimilation policy.
Up until the late 20th century, many Sami children were separated from their families and placed in boarding schools, where they were banned from speaking their own languages or practising their culture and traditional livelihoods, the report said.
"As a result, many children lost contact with their own language and identity, and the impacts are still visible in the Sami communities in the form of endangered languages and cultural losses," it said.
The commission submitted its final report to the prime minister and Sami representatives on Thursday.
Finland has yet to formally apologise to the Sami people, but Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters after the handover ceremony: "It is clear to me that an apology must be made."
Around 10,000 Sami live in Finland out of a total of around 75,000-100,000, with their "Sapmi" homeland straddling northern Finland, Sweden, Norway and the interior of Russia's Kola Peninsula.
Their culture and language are rooted in the traditional livelihoods of reindeer husbandry, fishing, gathering and handicrafts.
Three Sami languages are spoken in Finland -- Northern Sami, Inari Sami, and Skolt Sami.
Finland's assimilation policy was never written in law like in neighbouring Sweden and Norway, but "the end result has been the same", commission chair Hannele Pokka told AFP.
In its report, the commission said the state must "assume responsibility for historic injustices" and acknowledge the country had been "established on the lands of two people, the Sami and the Finns".
- 'A good future' -
Niila-Juhan Valkeapaa, the 21-year-old vice chair of the Youth Council of the Sami Parliament in Finland, said the report was of "huge" importance.
"Now for the first time, we are able to officially tell our stories, and the truth should become available to everyone," he told AFP.
Pokka stressed that intergenerational trauma caused by the assimilation policy was still present among the Sami people.
"People have told us about things they have stayed silent about for decades, things that involve truly painful and difficult experiences," she said.
In the report, one person is quoted as telling the commission of their treatment at school in the early 1950s.
"I didn't know a single word of Finnish," they said. "I didn't understand the lessons. I was punished with a stick until I learned Finnish. They always hit my fingers."
Today, the Sami people face hardships caused by climate change and competition for land use in the Arctic region, the report said.
Their rights as an indigenous people were also not being fully respected.
The commission proposed 68 measures involving legal and administrative changes to ensure the Sami people "a good future", and Pokka said she hoped to see government action "as soon as possible".
Among other things, it urged the government to adopt the International Labour Organization's Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, to introduce legislation governing Sami reindeer husbandry and establish a unit coordinating Sami affairs in the prime minister's office.
Prime Minister Orpo vowed he would "respond to the request that this final report be brought before the entire parliament for discussion".
Finland's Evangelical-Lutheran state Church -- which actively enabled the assimilation policy -- apologised to the Sami earlier this year.
Truth and reconciliation commissions have in recent years revealed violations and discrimination against indigenous people in Australia, Canada and the other Nordic countries.
