Between 2017 and 2018, there was a 17 per cent increase of cases of rape, and a 20 per cent increase in other forms of sexual assault in France.

 

Since 2009, around 3 million immigrants have arrived in Europe. In the year 2015, at the height of the migration crisis, a record 1.8 million illegal border crossings were reported in Europe.¹ In the last ten years, 67 per cent of asylum seekers in Europe have been male, and 80 per cent of them have been under the age of 35. Approximately 2.4 million asylum applicants were from nine Muslim- majority countries (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria), so most immigrants are indeed of the Muslim faith. Four European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France) host 70 per cent of Europe’s unauthorized immigrant population.²

Alongside the increase in arrivals to Europe, sexual violence has proliferated on the continent, as detailed in ‘Chapter 3: Sexual Violence by Numbers’. Between 2017 and 2018, there was a 17 per cent increase in instances of rape, and a 20 per cent increase in other forms of sexual assault in France.³ In French public places, 3 million women have experienced unwanted sexual attention and advances. 

In Germany in 2017, the number of victims of ‘sexual coercion’ rose by 41 per cent. Compared to the previous year, Sweden witnessed a 12 per cent increase in reported sex offences in 2016—the staggering jump in these statistics is all the more shocking because rates of sexual violence were relatively stable in Sweden between 2005 and 2011. Although Hirsi Ali recognizes that some of the increase in sexual crime statistics might be explained by new legal definitions of rape and greater public awareness about the issue (due to #metoo), she argues that it must also be acknowledged that the countries with the largest intake of immigrants have witnessed the largest increase in sexual violence. Therefore, she concludes, assessing the link between immigration and the rise of sexual violence is vitally important.