The number of Swedes reporting to have been victims of sexual crimes has tripled between 2014 and 2018, according to a report by the Swedish Crime Prevention Council Brå.
The report reveals that in 2018, around six per cent of the Swedish population between the ages of 16 and 84 say they had been victims of sexual offences, a total of around 482,000 people.
The percentage is a slight decrease from the previous year, which saw 6.4 per cent of Swedes claiming to have been victims of sex crimes. However, it marks a tripling of the 2014 figure, which was just two per cent.
Between 2006 and 2012, the number of reported sex attack victims remained under two per cent, with a low of 1.4 per cent in 2011.
Women had a much higher rate of reported sex attacks with 9.9 per cent — around one in ten — saying they had been a victim in 2018, compared to just 1.6 per cent of men.
The report notes that sex attack statistics cover serious crimes such as rape but also cover other offences such as abusive sexual remarks.
While the overall number of reports decreased slightly in 2018 from 2017, the county of Örebro reported a substantial increase from 6.7 per cent of women reporting sex attacks in 2017 to 11.4 per cent the following year, according to broadcaster SVT.
Overall, 26.4 per cent of Swedes say they had been exposed to crime in 2018. Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson said the figure “shows that the development continues to go in the wrong direction”.
“It is quite obvious that we are not doing what needs to be done. If we do not do really powerful things, then nothing powerful will change,” Mr Kristersson added.
The report comes as Sweden has seen a surge in violent crime, especially when it comes to deadly shootings and explosions in the last few years.
Last year, the country saw a record number of fatal shootings, with police officer Gunnar Appelgren describing the country as being in something akin to a “state at war”.