Crimes against the person in Sweden have risen to “the highest level since measurements began”, according to the latest National Security Survey.
“Vulnerability to fraud, sexual offences and harassment has increased,” confesses a press release issued by the Scandinavian country’s Crime Prevention Council (Brå).
Fully 15.6 per cent of the population aged 16-79 were subjected to abuse, threats, sexual offences, personal property, fraud, or harassment in 2016, based on a sample of 12,000 people.
Brå notes that “young women aged 16-24 are the most vulnerable to sexual offences”, and reveals that an astonishing 14 per cent of young women in that age group — and 1.2 per cent of young men — were “subjected to at least one such crime” in 2016.
Worryingly, the Crime Prevention Council’s data suggests that only 11 per cent of those exposed to sexual offences in 2016 reported them to the police, with the figures for harassment and threats similarly low, at 26 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively.