Nollalinja is a nationwide free helpline (tel. 080 005 005) and chat service for everyone who has experienced violence or a threat of violence in a close relationship. Nollalinja also assists women who have experienced violence or a threat of violence outside their close relationships. Nollalinja is also available for family members of victims of violence and for professionals and officials who require advice in their work with customers.
Nollalinja is staffed by trained and experienced health and social services professionals, who are there to listen to you, support you and advise you around the clock, on every day of the year.
With Nollalinja, you can share your situation, experiences and fears confidentially and anonymously. The crisis worker of Nollalinja may not know your name or phone number unless you tell them yourself. Your call to Nollalinja will also not show up on your phone bill.
In the matters concerning the reporting obligation Nollalinja follows the Finnish legislation and Nollalinja’s operating practices. You can find more information about Nollalinja’s reporting obligation on the front page of Nollalinja.fi
If Nollalinja is busy and you cannot get through, you can try again at any time. Nollalinja cannot phone you back, because your phone number is not stored anywhere when you phone us.
New Europe-wide harmonised helpline number 116 016 for victims of violence against women and domestic violence
Finland has adopted the Europe-wide harmonised helpline number 116 016 for victims of violence against women and domestic violence. When calling the number 116 016 from Finland, calls are directed to Nollalinja in the same way as when calling Nollalinja directly, tel. 080 005 005. When calling either number, the caller’s phone number is not displayed on Nollalinja, calling is free of charge and the caller’s phone bill will not include a note of the call.
When you call 116 016 from another country that has already activated the number, you will be directed to the helpline in that country. If, while abroad, you need help regarding domestic violence and want the call to be directed to Finland, please use the country code and call +358 80 005 005. Calling to Finland from abroad is subject to a charge.
The Europe-wide harmonised number is currently in use in Finland and Germany. We will update the information on the EU countries that have introduced the number on this website yearly.
Nollalinja chat service
In addition to Nollalinja helpline, you may also talk to a crisis worker with the Nollalinja chat service. The chat is open Monday to Wednesday from 9am to 3pm and Thursday to Friday from 2pm to 8pm. The chat operates on the www.nollalinja.fi website. The chat pop-up window opens on the bottom corner of the website while the chat service is open. The crisis worker can receive a limited number of conversations at once.
Your device’s IP address is not shown to the crisis worker you are talking with. The conversations will be carried namelessly. The crisis worker will fill an anonymous service monitoring form as they do with Nollalinja helpline calls.
Nollalinja provides help in various languages
You can talk to Nollalinja crisis workers on the phone and in the chat in Finnish, Swedish or English and on the phone via an interpretation service in 9 interpreted languages (Arabic, Dari, Spanish, Farsi, Somali, Sorani, Thai, Ukrainian, Russian). Calls with interpretation are also available 24 hours a day.
We develop the service with the help of an anonymous service monitoring form
An anonymous electronic service monitoring form is completed for the discussions had on Nollalinja. The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) uses this anonymous monitoring to develop the operation of Nollalinja together with Setlementti Tampere, the producer of the service.
The service monitoring form is used to collect anonymous information on the role of the person who made contact, the forms, duration, occurrence and consequences of the violence they encountered, and their language, gender, age group, services used and assistance received. The person who made contact will not be interviewed during the contact. Instead, the Nollalinja employee enters the required information when it comes up in the conversation.
No personal details will be recorded in the form even if you mention them during the phone call. The telephone operator provides THL with information on the volume, times and durations of received and unanswered calls. THL also receives information on the volume of chat conversations and exchanged messages from the chat operator. The information collected about the calls and chat messages will be used in statistics, in the development services and in research.
Background of the service – combating violence against women and domestic violence
Finland ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) in 2015. Nollalinja, a free-of-charge helpline, is one of the low-threshold services that the Convention requires of its signatories. The Nollalinja helpline is organised by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). The service provider is the religiously and politically non-affiliated NGO Setlementti Tampere ry.
Nollalinja is a special service funded by the Finnish Government (Ministry of Justice), which is partly funded by victim surcharges levied on offenders.
Safe use of the website
If you have to leave this website in a hurry, click the Quick Exit button on the right. This will take you immediately to www.google.fi.
Your web browser automatically stores pages you visit in a cache. If you visit a site that you do not want other people to know about, the easiest way is to select Private Browsing, in which sites visited will not be cached.
Another option is to Clear History after browsing. it is also a good idea to clear the history when you have been looking at your personal data on a shared computer, for instance in a library or other public place.
Here are instructions on how to select Private Browsing and Clear History in various browsers:
Chrome
Private browsing: Open the browser normally. Click the icon with three dots at the top right. In the pop-up menu, select ‘New Incognito Window’.
Clear history: Press Ctrl+H to bring up the history. Check the pages you wish to delete and then click ‘Delete Selected’.
Internet Explorer
Private browsing: Open the browser normally, and the browser logo will appear on the bottom bar of the screen. Right-click the logo, and in the pop-up menu select ‘Begin InPrivate Browsing’.
Clear history: Press Ctrl+H to bring up the history. Right-click the desired page and select ‘Delete’.
Firefox
Private browsing: Open the browser normally. Click the icon with three lines at the top right. In the pop-up menu, select ‘New Private Window’.
Clear history: Click the icon with three lines at the top right. In the pop-up menu, select ‘History’ and then ‘Clear Recent History’. In the pop-up menu, select the time since when you wish to clear the history.
Safari
Private browsing: Select ‘Archive’ on the menu bar and then ‘New Private Window’.
Clear history: Select ‘History’ on the menu bar and then ‘Clear History’.