Newspaper investigation mitigates sexual violence allegations against asylum seekers

An investigation done by a newspaper on Thursday downgraded the public perception of asylum seekers in rape and other sexual assault cases in Finland.

The Swedish language newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet (HBL) analysed police statistics and claimed that young male asylum seekers were involved in sexual crimes in Finland much less than same aged foreigners in general.

HBL said it had obtained information about investigations in all the country's police districts for the last three months of 2015.

HBL found out that the frequency of an alleged sex crime among the asylum seekers aged 21-40 was roughly one per 2,300 men. In the group of other foreigners in Finland, there was one sexual violence investigation per 918 men. In the ethnically Finnish population, an alleged violent sexual crime reached investigation per 4,267 men.

The police reminded HBL that not all sexual crimes get reported, but as the high threshold of reporting applies to all segments of population, the statistics can be compared.

The group of male asylum seekers in Finland comprised 25,000 men, whereas there were 56,000 men of same age of foreign background in Finland. The population of the same aged male Finns was 653,000. Eleven cases involving asylum seekers were investigated, 61 cases involving other foreigners, and 153 cases involving the general male population.

The HBL investigation was published as sexual assaults allegedly committed by young asylum seekers made headlines in Finland in recent months. Endit