In a report, Professor James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, urges Norway, Sweden and Finland to increase public funding of Sami parliaments.

The Sami (or Saami), commonly referred to as “Lapps” although they refuse this appellation, are an indigenous people of a transborder area covering mainly northern Norway and central Sweden, as well as Finland and the Kola peninsula in Russia. Since the 1990’s in the three Scandinavian countries there exist Sami Parliaments exercising their power mainly in the fields of education, language and culture.

The Sami languages, which have a total of about 35,000 speakers, belong to the Finno-Ugric family, are divided into 9 groups. The UN is concerned with an alarming situation: the number of speakers is steadily declining, some variants have disappeared recently and others are dying.

One of the aims of Professor Anaya’s report is therefore to encourage Sami parliaments to better fund revitalization programs for these languages, and to promote their use in the media and mother-tongue education for children.

This recommendation is in line with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has finally been endorsed by the United States last December.