Swedish Activists' Answer to Migrant Sexual Assaults — Early Sex Education for Young Refugees

Advocates of youth sex education in Sweden have suggested one way to combat sexual assaults by migrants is to offer young refugees sex education, including teaching them about gay rights, abortion, STDs and gender equality, a Swedish newspaper reported.

Leaders of the sexual education organization RFSU — the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education — promoted Sex Ed classes for refugee teenage boys in an opinion piece in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, excerpts of which were translated by the English-language website The Local.

“There is an acute need for knowledge about everything from sexually transmitted diseases and condoms to abortion rights, gender equality, legislation and LGBTQ rights,” RFSU Chairwoman Kristina Ljungros and Secretary-General Maria Andersson wrote, according to The Local.

The issue of sexual harassment of local women by men arriving from Muslim majority countries has become a hot button issue throughout Europe following reports of widespread group sexual assaults by Middle Eastern migrants in the German city of Cologne on New Year’s Eve and elsewhere.

This Dec. 31, 2015, photo shows people gathering in front of the main railway station in Cologne, western Germany. Police in Cologne told AFP they have received more than 100 complaints by women reporting assaults ranging from groping to at least one reported rape, allegedly committed in a large crowd of revelers during year-end festivities outside the city’s main train station and its famed Gothic cathedral. (Markus Boehm/AFP/Getty Images)

The sex education advocates rejected those who link ethnic backgrounds to sexual violence, arguing instead that sexual violence is rooted in gender, masculinity and power.

“A large part of these unaccompanied boys come from societies with norms and values around gender and sexuality that in many ways differ from mainstream Swedish society,” Ljungros and Andersson wrote.

Sweden last year accepted the largest number of refugees per capital in Europe.

A Swedish newspaper last week obtained police memos which revealed that Swedish police had covered up reports of the sexual harassment of young girls by refugee youths at Sweden’s summer music festival last year. Time magazine noted that the report suggested police had covered up the assaults in order to avert the spread of anti-migrant sentiment.

According to another internal police letter obtained last week by Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet, police in Stockholm in September were instructed to refrain from providing the public with key details about criminal suspects including skin color and ethnicity to avoid being labeled racist.

The Local pointed out that Sweden holds one of the highest rape rates in Europe.

A column on the Gatestone Institute website last year titled "Sweden: Rape Capital of the West" asserted that Sweden ranked No. 2 in the world in rapes, surpassed only by Lesotho in southern Africa.