page_title: Rape statistics
section_title: Sweden
hierarchical_section_title: Rape statistics / Policy and statistics by country / Sweden
caption_attribution_description: English: Rape rate per 100,000 population, comparison by country (selected top and bottom countries). Español: Violación sexual tasa por cada 100,000 habitantes, Comparación por países.
context_page_description: Statistics on rape and other sexual assaults are commonly available in industrialized countries, and are becoming more common throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading. In some jurisdictions, male-female rape is the only form of rape counted in the statistics. Countries may not define forced sex on a spouse as "rape". Rape is a severely under-reported crime with surveys showing dark figures of up to 91.6% of rapes going unreported. Prevalence of reasons for not reporting rape differ across countries. They may include fear of retaliation, uncertainty about whether a crime was committed or if the offender intended harm, not wanting others to know about the rape, not wanting the offender to get in trouble, fear of prosecution, and doubt in local law enforcement.
  A United Nations statistical report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. The reported data covered 65 countries.
context_section_description: A frequently cited source when comparing Swedish rape statistics internationally is the regularly published report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), based on official statistics provided by each member state. In 2012, Sweden had 66 cases of reported rapes per 100,000 population, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). This was unequivocally the biggest number reported to the UNODC in 2012. However, widely differing legal systems, offence definitions, terminological variations, recording practices and statistical conventions makes any cross-national comparison on rape statistics difficult, which is why the UNODC itself cautions against using their figures. It should also be noted that many countries do not report any rape statistics at all to the UNODC, and some report very low numbers, despite studies that indicate otherwise.
  The Swedish police record each instance of sexual violence in every case separately, leading to an inflated number of cases compared to other countries. Sweden also has a comparatively wide definition of rape. This means that more sexual crimes are registered as rape than in most other countries. For example, in 2005 Sweden reformed its sex crime legislation and made the legal definition of rape much wider, which led to a marked increase in reports. Additionally, the Swedish police have improved the handling of rape cases, in an effort to decrease the number of unreported cases. For this reason, large-scale victimization surveys have been presented by criminologists as a more reliable indicator of rape prevalence. An EU-wide survey on sexual violence against women, published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2014, showed Sweden was only third highest, below Denmark and Finland and a previous assessment by Brå have placed Sweden at an average level among European nations.
  According to the FRA study there's a strong correlation between higher levels of gender equality and disclosure of sexual violence. This, and a greater willingness among Swedish women to report rape in relationships, may also explain the relatively high rates of reported rape in Sweden, which has a long-standing tradition of gender equality policy and legislation, as well as an established women's movement, and has been ranked as the number one country in sex equality.
caption: Comparison of selected countries' reported rape rates, 2012.
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