“In Finland, attempted murder carries a prison sentence of 3.5 to 4.5 years. But a person will be sentenced to half that time if they hold a knife to someone's throat and rape them. All kinds of violent acts can occur under the umbrella of rape,” she told YLE’s Morning TV talk show.

She said that Finland’s penal code has numerous clauses that allow for lighter sentences, but lacks clauses to hand down tougher sentences.

“By sentencing people to conditional terms, we lose sight of the relationship between the punishment and the seriousness of a crime. At the same time, we are considering what would be an appropriate punishment for the perpetrator. The thought has been, let’s not cause too much misery to the perpetrator with this punishment. And often, they are not suffering at all,” she says.

She adds that the attitudes of prosecutors and courts are completely outdated. In Finland, persons convicted of so-called "date rapes” are handed lighter sentences.

”In Finland, rapes are generally put into this milder category. The perpetrators are then given conditional sentences. It is clearly a question of choosing one's values and attitude on this,” she says.

She adds that rape is far more than just violence.

“The statutory definition of rape should read sexual relations without consent. All the violence that occurs during the rape should then be added on to the sentence. For instance, France and England have far tougher punishments than we do.”