A/HRC/8/24 Page 8 exercise. Regarding the report, Bolivia recognized the importance of the National Plan for monitoring discrimination adopted by the Finnish Government last year and encouraged Finland to continue with its efforts to ensure that there is no discrimination and to punish violations, particularly those which affect women and migrants. It asked Finland for supplementary information about the situation of the Sámi people and specific measures being implemented to enable them to enjoy fully civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. It recommended that Finland consider ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW) and ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, and that it consider reviewing the procedures regarding asylum requests, with a view to bringing them in line with the commitments undertaken in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. 23. Belgium noted the importance of the ombudsman mechanisms in Finland. In addition to the parliamentary ombudsman, it noted the establishment of a similar mechanism for minorities and an ombudsman for children, a decision which had been positively welcomed by several treaty bodies. Belgium referred to the importance of organs that offer mediation to solve a great number of human rights problems and stated that the use of mediation did not exclude access to the justice system at a later stage, but in a majority of cases mediation is effective and offers on the side of victims the advantage of rapidness and immediate reparation. Belgium asked to what extent the current system in Finland addresses all needs; if there are issues of coherence arising from the work of the different mechanisms; and if Finland had plans to establish a national human rights institution in order to better guarantee the coherence of the national human rights protection system. Further, Belgium noted the criticism of some NGOs regarding the scope of application of the domestic legislation in the field of non-discrimination and equality and the legal remedies that are said to be much more comprehensive in the case of discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin in comparison to other grounds such as disability and sexual orientation. Belgium asked whether the delegation of Finland could confirm this analysis and what it was planning to do to remedy this situation. 24. Among good practices, Brazil stressed the appointment of ombudsmen for equality, data protection, minorities and children, as well as advisory bodies for ethnic relations, for gender and for Sámi Affairs. Brazil recognized the accomplishments of the Government of Finland in the field of human rights. In relation to discrimination, Brazil noted that the national report stated in paragraph 103 that “victims of discrimination are often reluctant to report discrimination to the competent authorities, because they do not believe it will have an effect”. In that context, Brazil asked what measures were being taken by the Government to change such attitudes by those who suffer from discrimination. 25. Following the dialogue, the representative of Finland indicated that her Government was trying to take measures to combat the problem of racial discrimination, such as through the adoption of the new non-discrimination Act obligating all authorities to foster and safeguard equality in a systematic and targeted manner. Additionally, further reform of legislation is currently under preparation. She agreed that changing attitudes is also required and that changing attitudes in Finland was very difficult. She explained that Finnish society had been a homogeneous one for a long time and now there was the new challenge of dialogue among cultures to be faced, and Finland was trying to learn good practices from other countries. With respect to the problem of violence against children and women, Finland stated that it is an urgent concern and that it has tried to be really self-critical and use holistic approaches to address this issue, including through action programmes. Replying to the issues of asylum-seeker procedures the delegation explained that the Finnish Government and the Parliament are of the view that Finnish asylum procedures do comply with the requirements set by international obligations. In Finland, all applications are examined through either the ordinary or the accelerated procedure and they are all subjected to individual