The much-vaunted first-of-a-kind rape clinic exclusively for men and boys recovering from sexual assault has been slammed as a fraud and exercise in headline grabbing.
Set in Sweden’s Södersjukhuset, Europe’s largest hospital, the clinic promised 24-hours a day, 365-days a year for emergency treatment of men and boys who have been attacked. Press releases and political comment surrounding the opening praised the centre for being the first of its kind, for plugging a gap that had before left men vulnerable after rape, as Breitbart London reported at the time.
Yet the centre has now been accused of being nothing more than a cynical play in Sweden’s mission to normalise rape and doesn’t even deliver on it’s basic promises.
Far from being a new clinic set up just for men and boys, the service is actually a long-standing clinic for women “who have been subjected to acute sexual assault” that has been opened up to men as well, which has angered women’s advocacy groups. Even if the centre was all men, it was not in fact the first of its kind.
A sexologist working inside the unit has spoken out about the re-branding, and remarked: “To say that we’re the first clinic in the world to provide this kind of care [for men] is incorrect… I know there are clinics in Denmark and Norway already, so I believe there has been a misunderstanding of some kind along the way”, reports Politico.
That recently raped women will have to share a facility with men has horrified Wiveca Holst, a leader of a Swedish association of women’s shelters. She said discussing male rape ‘silenced’ women, and remarked of the change: “We were not consulted. I don’t know who was consulted or even if a consultation happened. But we should have been asked, as an organization that deals as a matter of course with victims of sexual violence.
“We would have said that we believe they should have kept the clinic ‘women-only,’ and opened a new one for men if it were needed. Now, recently raped women will be sharing a space with men. This was an excellent facility but opening it to men is insensitive and a backwards step… Making male rape more visible is one thing: Perhaps it is more interesting to talk about male rape for a change. But it is also a way of silencing women”.
There are around 370 cases of male rape in Sweden a year, making up around five percent of all those committed nationwide. Sweden has gone from having one of the lowest incidences of rape in the world to one of the highest in just 40 years.
In 2002, 85 per cent of those sentenced to at least two years in prison for rape in the Swedish court of appeal were either first or second generation immigrants.
Follow Oliver Lane on Twitter: Follow @Oliver_Lane or e-mail to: olane@breitbart.com
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