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This article says a lot about a certain mindset regarding issues surrounding rape allegations (The Local, 4/28/09).  It comes to us from Sweden.

Apparently Sweden, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most gender equal countries on earth, has been scored by Amnesty International for failing to convict more rape defendants.  During one year, about 3,500 rapes were reported to police, but only about 13% resulted in "a decision to start legal proceedings."  What the actual conviction rate was, the article doesn't say.

The article goes on to say that, over the past 20 years, rape allegations reported to the police have quadrupled.  It also reports that Swedes are now more likely to be the victim of a sex crime than a robbery.  And, although only 3,500 rapes were reported, actually some 30,000 occurred. The tone of the article is urgent and alarming.  The headline states that Amnesty International finds that "Swedish rapists enjoy impunity."  In short, according to the article, Sweden is little short of a rapist's paradise in which women refuse to report rapes and when they do a callous judicial system is loathe to pursue the offenders.

Really?  If reports of rape have quadrupled in 20 years, how can the article claim that women don't come forward with their claims?  I suppose it's theoretically possible that, over the same 20 years that incidents of rape have more than quadrupled, but I doubt it. 

After all, if that were the case, how to explain the fact that, according to the 2008 Swedish Crime Survey only 1% of Swedes had been exposed to a sex crime of any sort (how many of those were rapes isn't reported)?  How to explain the statement in the same report that "Swedes are in general a secure people.  Worry about being subjected to crime oneself is fairly unusual."?

Isn't it barely possible that the greatly increased public awareness of crimes of all sorts against women over the past 20 years has resulted in the increase in reports of rape?  Isn't it also possible that many of those are either false claims or claims of such dubious legal merit that prosecutors can't pursue them?

Speaking of false claims, that concept is nowhere mentioned in the article.  After all, a 13% indictment rate strongly suggests one of two things, weak evidentiary cases (for whatever reason), or prosecutors who don't care that rapists walk free.  The article chooses the latter and utterly ignores the former.  But in a country that has outstripped almost all others in its quest for gender equality, there are bound to be Swedish "Wendy Murphys," i.e. female prosecutors with a bent for rape cases. 

So I'm not buying the article's conclusion that prosecutors aren't serious about rape allegations.  That opinion is buttressed again by the Swedish Crime Survey that shows that Swedes have high confidence in the police and the judicial system.  If those institutions were as bad on rape allegations as the article claims, would they? 

Hewing none to close to traditional notions of journalism, the writer neglected to ask any officials of the Swedish judicial system their opinions of how rape allegations are dealt with or how seriously they're taken.  The article offers actual members of that system no opportunity to explain, correct or give context.  Might they, for example, have an explanation for the 13% indictment rate in rape claims?  Is there a good reason or is it just perfidy on the part of all concerned?

Oh, and the article's claim that sex crimes outnumber robberies is wrong.  All sex crimes combined affect only 1% of Swedes, while robberies affect 4-7%.

What must be the most bizarre aspect of the article is the claim by a United Nations report that it is gender equality itself that results in women not coming forward to report rape.  Gender equality, we are told, far from empowering women to report rape, more than ever causes them to fear "public shame - being regarded as a tragic failure in a country of supposed gender equality."

So there you have it; lack of gender equality is bad because it deprives women of the self-esteem to report rape, and gender equality is bad for the same reason.  Eurasia is no longer the enemy of Oceania; East Asia is the enemy of Oceania and always has been.

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