On 2 March this year, a 15-yearold girl went to a party in the suburb Tensta outside Stockholm, Sweden. By the end of the night, she found herself locked in a room and repeatedly raped by a group of teenage boys. Eight of the boys were subsequently arrested, and six of them convicted of rape. Now they have all been acquitted. “This judgement does not fit with most people’s values,” the girl’s lawyer Magnus Eriksson said to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. He finds the court’s decision immoral. The court of appeal in Stockholm finds that the girl was not in a “completely helpless position” and that she is unlikely to have made correct observations because the room was dark. Despite the fact that four of the boys admitted to having sex with her, and she told them that she didn’t want to, this is not enough to convict them. “The sexual intercourse that took place could well have occurred against the girl’s will, and even if she said no to the boys it’s not considered rape unless they were taking advantage of her in a helpless position,” said the appeal judge Sven Jönson in an interview. In practice, this formulation has often been interpreted to mean unconsciousness, which leaves you with the somewhat absurd implication that someone who is not unconscious can just get up and leave as they are about to be raped. From 1 July this year, this law has been changed to include “especially vulnerable positions” such as the one this girl was in. But her case was judged using the old legal text, according to which she was not helpless enough.
Image credit: Urban Andersson, Aftonbladet.
The prosecutor believed this case to be clear enough for a conviction, even under the old law. But the boys are not even convicted on the lesser charges of sexual assault because there was no proof of their intention to abuse the girl’s sexual integrity. One must draw the conclusion that having sex with someone who is repeatedly saying no does not equate to abuse. “It is completely absurd to think that a 15-year old girl would actually want to have sex with a group of unknown boys in a locked room. She was helpless because they wouldn’t let her leave the room,” the lawyer Magnus Eriksson said. Today the girl has stopped going outside. She blames herself for what happened to her, just because she was in the room that night. “If the court doesn’t think it’s their fault,” she said, “that means they think it’s my fault.” PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO PROTEST THIS JUDGEMENT! You do not have to be in Sweden to sign. All you have to do is put in your name, (namn) city (stad/ort) and the verifying code (verifieringskod) and press the orange button Skicka to send.
About the Author
If judicial process couldn’t give proper justice to women in developed countries like Sweden, then expecting so from developing and underdeveloped countries becomes a distant reality. Somewhere faith in legal systems and governance are shattering day by day throughout the world.
On the other hand, developed countries are probably more likely to have old and outdated laws like the one in this case, whereas developing countries generally have newer legal systems which should (at least in theory) be better adapted to modern life. I think it’s better to measure the state of a country’s judicial system and governance by whether or not it’s possible to change laws and procedures that people are unhappy with.
I wouldn’t agree with the fact that Sweden has outdated laws regarding sexual violence – just ask Julian Assange.
Judging by this court case – and it is always hard to do so objectively – it just seems that the court of appeals decided to read the law in a very particular way. No matter how you put it, a girl in a room together with 6 guys who want to have sex with her DOES seem to me to be “helpless”. Therefore it is not the law that is a problem, it is its interpretation.
It is true that the interpretation is the problem rather than the law in this case, but it seems like changing the law is the only way to change these interpretations. I do personally think that it is a bit outdated to say that you have to be helpless for it to be rape, because that sounds to me like that concept predates things like marital rape and date rape, and assumes that it’s only rape when you are attacked by a stranger. But you’re probably right in saying that it is not a general truth that Sweden’s laws on sexual violence are outdated.