A few words about youth rape

After having worked actively with helping rape victims for a number of years, I’m now seeing a group crystallise which up to now has been relatively little known – young people raping young people. Rapes by people they know.

These rapes happen at parties at home (when the parents are out), class parties, large outdoor gatherings such as 17. May, midsummer, New Year’s Eve, etc. The rape is committed by someone of the same age, and almost always alcohol is involved somewhere along the line.

Fear of a parent, friends and others close of finding out what’s happened is pretty enormous as a rule, and these young people do everything they can to conceal what’s happened. It’s often impossible to gather evidence because they’ve washed, thrown away or burned everything they were wearing that day. Even their shoes and bags are thrown away or otherwise destroyed. The victim showers and removes the traces that way, and as a rule they leave it a while before they can bring themselves to confide in someone and tell them what’s happened.

One thing almost all the young people I’ve been in contact with have in common is the fact that they didn’t want any contact at all with the police, a doctor, a psychologist or other organisations where their situation might possibly have been detected by someone who could offer them treatment and follow-up. The younger they are, the harder it seems to be to persuade them to seek help.

As a rule, they also don’t want their parents to be involved, because their parents have told them they’re not allowed alcohol. Often, both the rapist and the victim have been drinking, and so they feel it’s more of a risk if the mother and father find out they’ve been drinking, rather than knowing they’ve been raped, and so they keep their problems to themselves.

Likewise, I’ve found that young people are very much in need of advice and guidance, information and discussion. Both in DIXI groups and in one-on-ones. Health visitors have turned out to be very good at providing support and guidance, and the same is true for staff at the crisis centre. The most important thing is to make sure that help and follow-up are available to anyone who’s been raped!

A few words about the law now. Section 192 of the General Civil Penal Code states that:
Any person who by force or by inducing fear for any person's life or health compels any person to commit an act of indecency or is accessory thereto shall be guilty of rape and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years, but not less than one year if the act of indecency was sexual intercourse.