Street address
Women’s Hospital, Entrance K, 1st floor
Haartmaninkatu 2, 00290 Helsinki
Mailing address
PO Box 140, 00029 HUS
24-hour telephone helpline
040 701 8446
The Sexual Assault Support Center is a support center for people over the age of 16 who have experienced sexual assault regardless of sex or gender. The support center provides a low-threshold service where a person can seek help alone, or with their loved ones, or as guided by the authorities. Reporting the offence to the police is not required, even though it is encouraged. The Finnish name of the center “Seri-tukikeskus” comes from the Finnish words meaning “sexual crime”.
Service from a Single Location
The Sexual Assault Support Center provides clients a comprehensive service under one roof. The service entails forensic medical samples from the victim of the assault, comprehensive assessment of the situation, support for surviving the next few days, psychological support in recovering from a traumatic experience, and creating a plan for further treatment. The Sexual Assault Support Center serves all genders; women, men, transgender and intersex people, and other genders.
The client will be given information regarding third sector services throughout the entire process, and, if they wish, they are assisted in starting the legal process.
The support center’s services are available to their fullest extent on weekdays between 8:00 and 18:00, but the telephone helpline is open 24 hours a day even on weekends. In emergency situations, an on-call doctor and midwife will see the patient and forensic medical samples are taken also outside the office hours. In these cases, clients are referred via the Women’s Hospital’s Emergency Services.
In emergency situations, you should always call the Sexual Assault Support Center helpline. Patients under the age of 16 are treated at the pediatric emergency clinics of Children’s Hospital and Jorvi Hospital.
The support center employs a full-time midwife-coordinator, a psychologist, and a social worker working part-time. The support center employs a part-time doctor. The services of a hospital chaplain are also available.
Obligations from Istanbul Convention
The Sexual Assault Support Center in the Women’s Hospital is the first in our country and it functions as a model for future support centers that are to be established in other locations in Finland. Initially the support center will serve Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa residents who have experienced sexual assault.
The support center was founded by the National Institute for Health and Welfare in collaboration with Women's Hospital. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has supported the preparatory work and provided funding for the project.
The background of establishing a Sexual Assault Support Center lies in the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (aka Istanbul Convention). The convention was ratified in Finland in 2015. The convention obliges Finland to establish support centers for people who have experienced sexual assault.