Anna Kontula

Anna Liisa Kontula (born 1977) is a Finnish sociologist and an MP since 2011. Until 2017, she was also a member of the city council of Tampere. In 2019, Kontula declared herself the only communist in the current Finnish parliament and predicted that the economic system would collapse.[2]

Anna Kontula
Kontula in 2018.
Member of the Finnish Parliament for Pirkanmaa
Assumed office
April 20, 2011
Parliamentary groupLeft Alliance
Personal details
Born
Anna Liisa Kontula

(1977-03-30) 30 March 1977
Pori, Turku and Pori Province, Finland
Political partyLeft Alliance
Alma materUniversity of Tampere (Master of Political Science)
OccupationResearcher
Websitehttp://annakontula.fi/
[1]

Biography

Anna Kontula was born on 30 March 1977 in Pori, Satakunta, Finland.[3] She completed her master's thesis in 2002 concerning the student movement of the 1970's.[4] She has completed multiple research projects on prostitution in Finland, such as a 2008 report published by the University of Tampere.[3] Her work has also included evaluating the criminalization of prostitution and violence toward women.[5] She has researched many subjects, evaluating work restrictions, cultural norms and perceptions including attitudes towards public breast-feeding,[6] aging construction workers,[7] the impact of racism in the workplace and in housing[8] among other topics.

She has served as the vice chairman of the Sex Industry Association,[5] and was involved in many organizations dealing with social activism during her school years.[3] In 2004, Kontula was elected in the municipal elections to the Tampere City Council.[9] In 2008, she was elected again,[10] and on both the 2008 and the 2012 elections, Kontula had the second-largest number of votes of any Left Alliance candidate.[11]

Kontula was first elected to the Finnish Parliament in 2011, representing the Pirkanmaa constituency from the Left Alliance.[12] She is a member of the Committee for the Future and the Employment and Equality Committee, having previously served on the Constitutional Law Committee and the Employment and Equality Committee.[1]

On Monday 13 January 2020, She was arrested along with other members of an international group of human rights activists near the Gaza Strip in Israel for trying to pass through a border fence. She said the group's aim was to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by crossing the border between Israel and Gaza. Taneli Hämäläinen, Kontula's Parliamentary Assistant, said on the next day that Kontula had been released after more than ten hours in custody and that the Israeli authorities had tried to press her to sign a statement that acknowledged the charges against her, such as obstructing the investigation and jeopardizing public safety. However, she refused to sign the document.[13]

Selected works
  • Prostituutio Suomessa Helsinki: Sexpo-säätiö (2005) (ISBN 951-95548-4-X) (in Finnish)
  • "The Sex Worker and Her Pleasure" Current Sociology, Vol. 56, no. 4 (2008): pp 605–620 (doi:10.1177/0011392108090944)(in English)
  • Punainen eksodus: tutkimus seksityöstä Suomessa Helsinki: Like (2008) (ISBN 978-952-01-0212-8) (in Finnish)
  • Tästä äiti varoitti Helsinki: Like (2009)(ISBN 978-952-01-0299-9) (in Finnish)
  • Countering Trafficking in Moldova Chisinau: International Organization for Migration (2009)
  • Näkymätön kylä: Siirtotyöläisten asemasta Suomessa Helsinki: Like: Into (2010) (ISBN 978-952-01-0522-8) (in Finnish)
  • Mistä ei voi puhua Helsinki: Like (2012) (ISBN 978-952-264-183-0) (in Finnish)
  • Kirjeitä oikealle Helsinki: Into (2014) (ISBN 978-952-264-271-4) (in Finnish)

References
  1. "Anna Kontula Vasemmistoliiton eduskuntaryhmä". Eduskunta Riksdagen (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Eduskunta Riksdagen. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  2. Anna Kontula on kommunisti ja nyt hän kertoo, miksi termiä ei pidä välttää – ”Itse olen valinnut tämän strategian” – Kansan Uutiset (in Finnish)
  3. "Anna Kontula". Like Finland (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Like Finland. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  4. Kontula, Anna (2002). "Kuollut muttei kuopattu: taistolaisuus ja miten sitä muistetaan". TamPub (in Finnish). Tampere, Finland: ampereen yliopisto. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  5. Roth, Venla (2012). Defining human trafficking and identifying its victims a study on the impact and future challenges of international, European and Finnish legal responses to prostitution-related trafficking in human beings. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 235. ISBN 978-9-004-22587-9. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  6. Kovanen, Inka (28 February 2015). "Ranska pohtii rintojen poliittisuutta" (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Helsingin Sanomat. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  7. "Rakennusalan harmaa työ". Suomen Akatemia (in Finnish). Finland: Suomen Akatemia. 24 September 2010. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  8. "Näkymätön kylä". Into Kustannus (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Into Kustannus. 2010. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  9. "Kunnallisvaalit2004". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Helsingin Sanomat. Archived from the original on 26 July 2015. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  10. "Puolueiden paikkaluvut". Vaalikone (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Helsingin Sonomat. 2008. Archived from the original on 30 October 2008. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  11. "Kunnan suurimmat puolueet". Vaalikone (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Helsingin Sanomat. 2012. Archived from the original on 4 December 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  12. "Valitut ehdokkaat Pirkanmaan vaalipiiri". Vaalit (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Eduskuntavaalit. 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  13. "Anna Kontula, a Finnish left-wing lawmaker, held for over 10 hours in Israel". www.helsinkitimes.fi. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
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