The Swedish government will invest of 3.7 million Swedish Krona (£305,948) to educate newly arrived migrants on sexual rights and sexual health.
The programme is primarily aimed at newly arrived female asylum seekers, but also at men to teach them the sexual and reproductive rights they have in Sweden as well as societal sexual norms, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
Describing the need for the programme as “extremely urgent”, Minister of Social Affairs Annika Strandhäll said: “We find that some of the women in this group of new arrivals come from communities where there are completely different norms, laws, and regulations.
“This project gives this group of women better opportunities to gain knowledge about the sexual and reproductive rights in Sweden.”
Strandhäll also mentioned the programme came as a result of a survey conducted by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), which will also be the beneficiary of the investment.
“It is an investment that fits very well into both the debate that follows the #MeToo campaign and the whole debate we have had in Sweden about the importance of the newly arrived women who come here get the right conditions for integration into Sweden,” Strandhäll added.
Since 2015, Sweden has had to deal with a number of child marriages that occurred overseas and as many as 240,000 young people under the age of 25 now live under so-called “honour culture”.
In some cases, the government has previously allowed the “husbands” of child brides to live with them and has refused to charge others with rape when they have impregnated their underage spouse if the rape occurred outside of Sweden.
The government made a recent attempt to address child marriages through an informational booklet released in late March but withdrew the booklet after a massive public backlash.
Migrant men, who will also be part of the programme, have been shown to be disproportionally involved in gang rapes according to a recent study. Some, like Swedish lawyer Elisabeth Fritz, has claimed that the majority of suspects in rape cases she has worked on came from migrant backgrounds.