"Begging is still better than going hungry where I am from," she said, squatting behind her empty plastic cup on a sidewalk near Helsinki's railway station.

"Some of my friends left because they heard that their children might be taken away. I have no choice. I have no better way of supporting my family back home."

The government estimates about 10,000 Roma people live in Finland, although they say the number could be much higher as tracking their movements has been almost impossible.

Most Roma come from Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU last year.

Those recently arrived often sleep in tents or in makeshift communities on highway medians and rarely have access to healthcare to take care of their families.

By law, the Roma cannot be deported, unless they commit a serious crime. Begging is not illegal.

When Roma beggars, an ubiquitous presence in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, first appeared on Helsinki's streets last year, it caused a stir in the local media and highlighted a certain intolerance toward foreigners.

The Roma are not the only group to have faced discrimination in Finland, where people have often been hostile towards newcomers until recent signs that the economy would suffer if the country did not adopt a more welcoming approach.

With a harsh climate and a language spoken only by a few, Finland is now trying to attract immigrants to shore up an economy weakened by Europe's fastest aging population and a shrinking labor force.

The population of Finland is about 5.3 million and there are around 122,000 foreigners, mainly from Russia and Estonia.

While the number of Roma beggars in Finland is still small - fewer than 100 according to one interior ministry study - police said they were becoming more organized and more aggressive, sometimes arriving in hired mini-buses for their day's work in Helsinki.