The new legislation against rape that came into force in Sweden in 2018 has led to a substantial increase in the reports of this crime. Despite this increment, the number of people convicted of rape remains low. According to the Swedish Amnesty International’s ambassador: “with 9668 reports but only 318 convictions on rape in 2021, the statistics prove that something within the current system is failing”.
In 2018 the law, known as consent law, was approved by a vast majority in the Swedish parliament and it is based on the notion of voluntariness. Victims of rape can demand justice without necessarily showing signs of violence, force or coercion on their bodies.
Furthermore, the new legislation introduced the crime of ‘negligent rape’ that considers in its ratio the perpetrator’s awareness of the criminal action, whether they were aware or not of the unwillingness of the victim, or if they could have been aware but because of gross negligence were not.
Sara Uhnoo is a researcher in criminology and sociology of law at the University of Gothenburg and has studied the fallout of the legislative change. “Prosecutors have told us that the new law makes it easier to reach a prosecution since there’s no longer a need to prove force or violence”, she explains “however there’s still a difficulty in reaching a conviction because of the shortage of evidence in these cases which leads to a word against word case”. According to her, there’s a risk that the low conviction rate leads to fewer victims of rape reporting to the police.
This brings us to question if the new legislation is enough to fight rapists or if there are other systematic problems that stand in the way of a future where sexual violence does not consistently affect the lives of thousands of people.
When the system fails
Most of the time, when a victim reports a rape to the authority, that is a policeman. Every decision made from this very moment will be vital for the investigation. The first frequent mistake is to let time pass without doing anything.
“Many police reports on rape are put aside for a period of time and that is really harmful in the individual case”, reported Katarina Bergehed, ambassador for women’s rights at Amnesty International Sweden. She affirms that while there have been some positive steps in recent years, there are still areas that need improvement in the treatment of sexual crimes.
“Police are then not even questioning the suspect”
Police have guidelines about how to conduct investigations that have been revised and updated in coordination with the 2018 consent legislation. However, these guidelines are not always applied concretely to the point that there are cases where “the whole investigation is delayed, and the police are then not even questioning the suspect” Katarina Bergehed states. In addition, continues the expert, instances of rape are not prioritized in comparison to other crimes that are deemed more urgent such as gang violence and shootings.
Nevertheless, some serious improvements have been done which hopefully will yield positive results. For instance, in 2019, the police invested 350 million in Swedish Crowns to fight sexual crimes, a part of which was used to recruit hundreds of investigators and experts in this area. “Within the major cities, special teams have been created to deal with sexual crimes and this is already showing encouraging results”, continues Katarina Bergehed.
But sometimes, as Amnesty International’s ambassador stated, the prosecutor drops the case too early. Bergehed said that sometimes the prosecutor drops the case too early because their workload may be too high or they consider the evidence to be too poor.
Being a victim now: what happened after the 2018 legislation
The legislative change had an explicit purpose to be norm-changing and influence the populations’ views and ideas regarding rape and consent. As previously stated, the number of reports which lead to a conviction remains low, compared to the high increase of reports, even after the legislative change, however, as mentioned by Katarina Bergehed, from a human rights perspective it was a significant key change. The previous legislation based on coercion and force did not fully protect the autonomy of the person. “In the long run it can have a normative effect on the minds and attitudes of people, which is where the change has to happen,” she explains further. According to researcher Sara Uhnoo there is a greater awareness of consent among young people.
Johanna Belachew, head of the clinical department at the National Center for Knowledge on Men’s violence against women tells us that at their clinic they can tell a change in the mentality of victims. “They know that if they did not give their consent, then they’ve been subjected to a crime”, she says. This change in mentality may be a reason for more people reporting the crime to the police.
Laws and legislation on their own fail to offer a solution to the problem of sexual violence as a structural problem deep-seated in our society. “Changes in law is a first and necessary step but they need to be followed by others” Katarina Bergehed states. Statistics show that men of all ages are preeminently represented in the convictions. Katarina Bergehed believes compulsory education on consent in schools is crucial in preventing sexual violence.
In 2018 the School inspection reported on flaws in Swedish sex education. As a result, an area of “Sexuality, consent, and relationships” is being introduced into the Swedish curriculum. The new area is aimed at students of all ages and should be included in all subjects. The aim is to give students a greater understanding of consent, and knowledge of power structures in relation to gender and honor-related crimes as well as develop a critical perspective on the portrayal of sex and relationships in pornography. “Going into schools and educating young people is the most important thing we can do ” says Johanna Belachew