The impact of migrant refugee criminality on [630210]

The impact of migrant /refugee criminality on
European social issues after 2015 – An analysis
of the link between the rise of sexual crime and
third-country national's
presence in Germany and Sweden
SFERLE BIANCA MARIA *1

ABSTRACT
This article aims to identify a link between the migration/ refugees crisis that started in 2015
and the increase in sexual criminality in the following years to come in countries where borders
have been penetrated by entire waves of migrants/refugees. A We will analyze the situation of two
countries that received migr ants/refugees with open arms: Germany and Sweden. Following the
conclusions of current literature, which claims that the attemp t to integrate the majority of
migrants /refugees , jeopardizes European values and citizens' safety, this paper supports the idea
that this crisis brings changes to social security matters in the European Union . B Using statistic s
of Europol, Frontex and the National Criminal Offices C, we aim to demonstrate that the 2015
migration/refugee crisis had a major contribution to the rise of sexual crime at the level of Germany
and Sweden and also contributed to the change of Europe’s p olitical landscape, as this
phenomenon has destabilized the social order of the continent. D
Key words: Migrant/ refugee crisis, sexual criminality, Germany, Sweden

INTRODUCTION
The civil war in Syria, which escalated in the spring of 2011 with protests against the
government triggered by Arab Spring movements , is the main cause of the worst migratory crisis

*Student: [anonimizat] – I, University of Oradea . E-mail: [anonimizat]

since the end of t he Second World War, which the E uropean continent has e ver had to face. The
European migration crisis refers to an enormous and unprecedented wave of Syrian
migrants/ refugees who have lost hope in their war -torn country that has been ruined by a war that
does not seem to have an end. Having little chance t o gain acceptance into neighbor ing countries,
and thanks to the generosity shown by European states like Germany and Sweden , Europe seemed
the only chance for Syrian war refugees and, later, for North African economic migrants to find
shelter.
In setting th e terms used in the literature surrounding the issue , a few methodological notes
should be made. Both crisis and m igration are considered nowadays’ characteristics , some research
even saying that we are living in an era of crisis and migration.2 The term “European migration
crisis ” appeared in the same time as migrants/refugees waves of 2015. Crisis is a widespread term,
but with no common definition3 because “crisis” means a different thing for every individual, it is
all about perception, b ut still, a crisis can be defined in relation with a notion of normality and
tranquility . A crisis is a period of imminent threat, an upheaval that challenges the stability of the
status quo, leaving its mark on the life of numerous people and institutions. C risis can also be
conceptualized as “a period of discontinuity, marking the breaking point in a patterned process of
linearity”4 ; thus, the modern crisis is a clear challenge to national governments . In the analyzed
case, the crisis is created by bad or lack of o rganization of the sates assaul ted by non -Europeans ,
but also the European Union 's reaction regarding this crisis, played an important role – ceding in
front of the overwhelming number of asylum seekers and the lack of measures against illegal
migrants .
International migration is closely linked to inequalities between states 5, either from the
economic point of view , either taking into account other factors such as security or state of
conflict/peace in a nation, or political factors such as leaders, regime, etc. Migration, like any other
mobility, involves movement between two distinct points/states . According to Eurostat,

2 Anna Lindley , Exploring crisis and migration: Concepts and issues , in Crisis and Migration – Critical Perspectives ,
(London : Routledge , 2014), 14
3 Michele Acuto, “Diplomats in Crisis ”, Taylor & Francis Online, (2011),
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2011.599661?scroll=top&needAccess=true Accessed
17.12.2018
4 Arjen Boin, Lessons from Crisis Research , in International Studies Review 6 , ed. ISA, (2004), 165
5 Andrew Geddes & Peter Scholten , The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe , (Singapore: SAGE, 2016), 5

“Migration refers to the number of migrants , people changing their residence to or from a given
area (usually a country) during a given time period (usually one year). ”6 Illegal migration is a
“Movement that takes place outside the regulatory norms of the sending, transit and receiving
countries; it is entry, stay or work in a country without the necessary authorization or documents
required under immigration regulations ”7. Legal migration takes place in legal norms, having the
required documentation for crossing borders , and can be defined as the m igration that occurs
through recognized , authorized channels.
In order to understand how we will approach this subject, knowing the difference between
the terms refugee, immigrant, migrant and asylum seeker is crucial for the reader A refugee is a
person who has been forced to leave his/ her country because o f war, vi olence or persecution.
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention , “is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to
their country of origin owing to a well -founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular soc ial group, or political opinion, is outside the
country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the
protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country o f his
former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling
to return to it .”8
A migrant is someone who is moving from a place to another, at national (inside the
country) or international level (across borders), usually to find a better job, seasonal work or any
other economic reasons. Migrants are rather looking for opportunities like work or education and
are not obliged by national circumstances like violence and war to leave their countries and they
can return home whenever they want. There is a difference between migrant and immigrant. An
immigrant is someone who takes the decision to leave his/her c ountry and to move and settle
abroad, but like migrants, they are free to return home whenever they choose .
Second ly, this paper takes as a starting point , the rise of post -migration sexual crimes in
Europe because it is a subject of actuality as the life of European citizens is jeopardized in an
attempt to prove the charity and hospitality of the Europea n elites by sheltering migrants/ refugees.

6 Eurostat, "Glossary: Migration", last modified: 4 July 2018, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics –
explained/index.php/Glossary:Migration
7 Richard Perruchoud and Jillyanne Redpath, Cross International Migration Law – Glossary on Migration , (Geneva:
IOM, 2011) , 54
8 United Nations High C ommission for Refugees, Text of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees ,
(Geneva, 1951), 16

The main purpose of this paper is to build on the findings and identi fy a link between the
migratory/refugee crisis that started in 2015 and the increase in sexual crime in the years to come,
in countries where borders have been penetrated by entire waves of migrants/ refugees. We will
analyze the situatio n of two countries that have received migrants/ refugees with open arms –
Germany and Sweden and try to find out whether the immigration wave has affected these
countries’ s ocial context or not . Germany, with its central European position, has accepted the
biggest number of refugees out of all other European states, with 441.800 first time applicants, or
35% of all first -time applicants from EU Member States9, but not even the Baltic Sea could prove
an insurmountable obstacle for the 156.100 (12%)10 migrants/refugees which have arrived in
Sweden.
Literature review
This part of the paper is a review of already existing writings related to the existence of a
relationship between immigration and criminality. Even if this problem was not so analyzed in
Europe because this dimension came into public attention quite soon, in the s pecialty literature
mixed results regarding this subject were found.
This part of the paper is a review of already existing writings related to the existence of a
relationship between immigration and criminality. Even if this problem was not appro ached as
much in Europe because this issue came into public attention rapidly, in the specialty literature
mixed results regarding this subject were found.
In the aftermath of the 2015 crisis, the behavior of immigrants started becoming an issue
of grave c oncern for European locals. For example, Marc Piiopiunik and Jens Ruhose concluded
that immigration leads to a substantial increase in crime: one immigra nt grows the crime rate by
0,56% amounting to an elasticity in criminality of 0,39 %. An important issue that they took into
consideration is the fact that these results depend on multiple other factors. The two researchers
proved that the rise of criminality depends on regional conditions present in respective countries
and that “the crime impact tends to b e larger in regions with high unemployment, suggesting the

9Eurostat, Asylum in the EU Member States https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7203832/3 –
04032016 -AP-EN.pdf/790eba01 -381c -4163 -bcd2 -a54959b99ed6 Accessed 20.12.201 8
10 Ibid.

importance of labor market opportunities for criminal behavior”11. Another thing that was taken
into consideration was the fact that immigration can have both a direct effect on crime – if the
immig rants commit crime themselves, and an indirect effect, if locals respond violently to
immigrant presence12.
Another study that supports our assumption of a relationship between immigration and the
rises of the criminality is the one of Brian Bell, Stephen Machin, Francesco Fasani who study
possible crime effects from two recent large flows of immigrants in the UK. Focusing on two
different cases: the large immigration waves of asylum -seekers in the late 1990s/early 2000s and
the large inflow of workers from EU accession countries from 2004, the authors presented different
results for both cases and concluded that criminality’s rates are higher in areas in which asylum
seeker s are located and not in areas affected by the EU enlargement wave. 13
Mister Hans Joachim Grote, Schleswig -Holstein’s Interior Minister, in his study made
together with Thomas Bliesener from the Niedersachsensen Criminology Institute (KFN) clearly
proves t hat in the studied German region, the criminality has risen with 61% between 2013 and
2016, even if the number of non -German population rose only with 0,5% and in the same period,
the number of German suspects in this kind of matters decreased with 1%. By comparing these
numbers, the existence of a relationship between criminality and migrant/refugee crisis from that
period and also the fact that migrants are more likely to be suspected of a crime was proven.14 On
the same note, Douglas Murray presents count less cases of sexual aggression caused by asylum
seekers from Germany .15 Therefore, the common point of these works is the hypothesis on which
they build their study: the relationship between immigration and the rise of criminality rate in a
certain state/r egion exists, but they also have in common one of the independent variables: the
migrants/refugees waves.

11Marc Piopiunik and Jens Ruhose, “Immigration, regional conditions, and crime: evidence from an allocation policy
in Germany” , European Economic Review , (December 2016), 5
12 Marc Piopiunik and Jens Ruhose, “Immigration, regional conditions, and crime: evidence from an allocation policy
in Germany” , European Economic Review , (December, 2016),
13 Brian Bell, Stephen Machin and Francesco Fasani , Crime and Immigration: Evidence from Large Immigrant
Waves, (London: Drayton House, 2010), 26
14 Marcel Leubecher , ”Studie sieht deutlich mehr Kriminalität durch Zuwanderer” ,
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article174284364/Schleswig -Holstein -Studie -sieht -deutlich -mehr –
Kriminalitaet -durch -Zuwanderer.html Accessed 06.01.2019
15 Douglas Murray, The Stra nge Death of E urope , (United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing , 2017), 159

On the other hand, some authors found a weak or even inexistent link between the two
keywords of this paper: immigration and criminality. For instance , even if Kristin F. Butcher and
Anne Morrison Piehl reached the conclusion that „the flow of recent immigrants is positively
correlated with the level of crime, it has no effect on one -year changes in the crime rate”16, Luca
Nunziata concluded that there is a „not -significant effect of immigration on individual crime
victimization” 17 and that it is only a European preconception. The existent data in Germany’s and
Sweden’s case were analyzed by McKinzie A. Davis and Lauren R. Vidler, by reminding examples
such as The New Year's Eve attacks upon women in Cologne. Even if the correlation between the
high rate of rape and assault and the increased rate of migrants accepted by the two states cannot
be denied, the authors say that it cannot be confirmed either18, because in Germany, the rape’s rate
did not significantly increase and in Sweden the violence against women it’s an old issue. In
addition , McKinzie and Vilder do not consider this relationship to be trustworthy because the
sexual attacks caused by immigrants are used in public discussions by right -wing extremist
parties.19

Research design/methodology

Mainly, this article is an att empt to reveal the existing effect of the European migration/refugee
crisis on the increases in sexual criminality . We will study the situation of two EU’s member states :
Germany and Sweden mainly because these two countries have been the ones which have agreed
to take by far the largest proportion of refugees in the EU . Another reason why we chose this case
study, was the great amount of news about sexual violence , that media has presented inside these
states , thing that made us think abo ut the possibility of criminality’s rising, and led us t o the
hypothesis of this pa per: there were changes in the European social landscape post migrant/ refugee
crisis that led to increases in sexual criminality in Germany and Sweden . For testing this

16 Kristin F. Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl, “Cross -City Evidence on the Relationship between Immigration and
Crime ,”, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, no. 3, (1998), 460
17 Nunziata Luca , “ Immigration and crime: evidence from victimization data ”, Journal of Population Economics, vol
28, (March,2015), 728
18 McKinzie A. Davis and Lauren R. Vidler – Sexual Violence in Europe: A Refugee Problem ? (Brigham Young
University, 2017), 14
19 Ibid, 6

hypothesis, we bought c lear evidence of statistic data from Europol, Frontex , UNHCR and the
National Criminal Offices.
As stated before, this work’s object of investigation is the already observed variation in
immigration and asylum po licy across different European member states. Our ass umption is that
countries that took a higher number of asylum seekers have also suffered changes in social matters
especially in crimes related to sexual abuses . In the same vein, t he dependent variable of this work
is the rise of criminality and migrant/refugee crisis an d the independent v ariables are : the m igration
wave, the number of as ylum seeker s, the number of enters on the European Union's territory and
the illegal border crossing, variables that will be operationalized by gathering all data and statistics
that can be found from official sources and then analyzing them through various quantitative
methods – standard deviation, frequency distribution and graphic analysis.
This article’s case study is divided into two parts: the first one represents an analysis of data
regarding the European migration crisis in order to establish the amount of third -country nationals
who have passed European borders between 2011 -2018, and then, reaching the second part, t he
number of sexual crimes, including sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment , should be examined.
As we do not want to restrict this study only to asylum seekers, in the first part, we also take in
account the recognized migrants/refugees, because this may have a strong influence when
analyzing the crime impact of refugee migration . In the second part, in order to investigate whether
our assumption is met or not , we focus our attention on two particular cases with high migration,
but from different parts of Europe: Germany – in the middle of the continent and Sweden, in the
northern part.
CASE STUDY

THE EUROPEAN MIGRATION CRISIS – STATISTI C DATA REGARDING THE
NUMBER OF MIGRANTS/REFUGEES, THE NUMBER OF ILLEGAL ENTERS, THE
NUMBER OF ASYLUM SEEKERS IN THE EUROP EAN UNION

Starting with 2015, an overwhelming number of Africans and middle easterners who were
in searching of a safe and prosperous place, running for their lives or from poverty, have crossed
European borders through the Mediterranean – on land and on water , and through the Western

Balkans, counting almost 41,000 migrants/refugees since 2011 until 2016.20 This migrant/refugee
wave disturbed the E uropean peace and has easily become a huge political and social matter, which
have strongly deligh ted the media.
In our attempt to find out if the hypothesis can be confirmed or not, w e, first of all, have to
operationalize the dependent and independent variables of this subject. First of all, the problem of
increasing sexual criminality has to be analyzed, starting fr om the roots, namely from the Sy rian
proxy w ar. It is understandable that a country on which territory's a long and bloody war is going
on since seven years ago, is not a good place to live in, so people have no choice but to flee in
neighboring countries , but in order to make a difference between the real Syrian refugees, the ones
whose life is in danger and the imm igrants, those who are just tak ing advantage of this war to go
to Europe, we have to anal yze some statistics.
Starting wi th May 2011 , thousands of Syrians have fled in neighbouring countries, be ing
forced to abandon their homes to save their life and by 2016, OCHA ( United Nations Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ) have identified 13.5 million Syrians in need of
humanitarian aid and home, 6 million of them being internally displaced21, this crisis becoming:
“the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of
refugees and the countries hosting them,”22 as Antonio Gut erres, the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees has declared.
Official data show that the Syrians ' number of cases handled have increased by 206% in
2012, becoming so, the largest group of migrants/refugees seeking international protection in EU,
for the fir st time in the history. It is also proved that the most popular destinations among
migrants/refugees were Germany and Sweden .23 In 2013 have been registered 61.143 Syrian
migrants/refugees in European Union's member states, with 27.500 more than last year when were
registered 33.603 , the biggest part of them being localized again in Germany (21.253) and
Sweden (17.983). In years to come, the number of migrants/refugees entering the European

20 Philip Faigle , Lea Frehse , Julian Stahnke , Paul Blickle und Sascha Venohr , “The new deadl y path of Europe”,
(April, 2016) https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2016 -04/refugees -routes -europe -mediterranean -sea
21OCHA, “ Syria: Humanitarian Da shboard – Cross Border Response”, (May,2016)
https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/turk ey_syria_humanitarian_dashboard_2016_jan_mar_0.
pdf
22 Adrian Edwards, “ Needs soar as number of Syrian refugees tops 3 million ”, (August, 2014)
https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2014/8/53ff76c99/needs -soar -number -syrian -refugees -tops -3-million.html
23 European Asylum Support Offi ce, Annual Report on the Situati on of Asylum in the European Union (2012 ), 7

Union's territory continued to increase: in 2014 with a number of 127.703 arrivals; in 2015 –
262.982, reaching its peak point in 2016 when, not less than 632.735 migrants/refugees reached
EU’s shores , of which 375.122 went to Germany and 96.914 went to Sweden .24 More than
186,000 migrants /refugees arrived in Europe in 2017, a pproximately 92% of them reaching
European count ries by sea (172,362), and the others, 8% arrived using various land routes .25
Regarding the t hird country nationals found to be illegally present in the Europe an Union,
according to Eurostat , between 2011 and 2017, there have been registered 5,795,91026
migrants/refugees i rregularly entering in the EU, following the Central Mediterranean, Eastern
Mediterranean and Western Balkan routes, the peak point being again in 2015 with 2.154. 675
illegal enters. While Eurostat data shows more than 2 millions of illegal migrants/refugees, Frontex
detected almost 615. 500 irregular entri es into the EU, in the third quarter of 2015 and more than
978.000 entries in the fourth quarter, meaning that the total number of i llegal entries by sea or land,
is around 1.82 million in 2015.27 The 204. 719 detections of illegal border crossing reported by the
Member States in 2017 represented a 60 % decrease compared with the 511. 047 detections of
2016 .28
Based on UNHCR and Eurostat ’s data regarding the number of asylum seekers, we found
out that there were 309.040 asylum applicants in 2011 , their number increasing at more than 62.000
in 2014 – most of them in Italy, but more than a half of people who applied for asylum in Italy, did
not stop there, but continued their journey to northern Europe, to Germany and Sweden in
particular, this two states receiving so, 43 % of all asylum applications . A bigger wave of asylum

24 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , “Table with data on Refugees ”, (Last update: November 2017)
http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=UNHCR&f=i ndID%3aType –
Ref%3basyID%3aaus%2cbel%2cbsn%2cbul%2ccyp%2ccze%2cden%2cest%2cfin%2cfra%2cgfr%2cgre%2chrv%2chun
%2cire%2cita%2cltu%2clux%2cmne%2cnet%2cnor%2cpol%2cpor%2crom%2cspa%2csvk%2csvn%2cswe%2cswi%2c
ukr%3boriID%3asyr%3byr%3a2011%2c2012%2c2013%2c2014%2c201 5%2c2016&c=0,1,2,3&s=yr:desc,asyEngNam
e:asc,oriEngName:asc&v=1
25 Flow Monitoring, “Migration Flows”
https://migration.iom.int/europe?type=arrivals&_ga=2.100538014.1896809714.1548957893 –
39286004.1546711137 , Accessed 25.01.2019
26 Eurostat, “ Third country nationals found to be illegally present – annual data”,
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=migr_eipre&lang=en , Accessed 25.01.2019
27 FRONTEX, “Risk Analysis for 2016”,
https://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Risk_An alysis/Annula_Risk_Analysis_2016.pdf , Accessed
25.01.2019, 16
28 Ibid, 17 -18

seekers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan hit Europe in 2015 when 1.322. 84529 of
migrants/refugees were waiting at EU member states’ borders hoping that the y all will be accepted
on European territory. In spite of the fact that in 2017, fewer people wanted asylum inside the
European Union’s borders (705. 705), the number was still higher than before 2015, but compared
with almost 1.3 million applications in 2016, there was a drop of 44% in asylum seekers .30
INCREASES IN TERMS OF SEXUAL ABUSES IN THE EU COUNTRIES – GERMANY
AND SWEDEN (2015 -2018)
The year 2015 was not only an unprecedented wave of migrants/refugees, but also a boom
in terms of sexual criminality, and a strong proof of this crisis’ impact on the member states’ ,
social and political matters . In this part of the paper, we will present some evidence on the impact
of immigration on crime, using data from Germany and Sweden in order to reve al that the number
of cases of sexual abuses has clearly increased with the entry of migrants/refugees across the
European Union's territory.
The main idea that will support our hypothesis of migrants/refugees increasing the number
of cases of sexual abuses , is the fact that while migrant/refugees are only a small par t of the non –
German population, an increase in the number of crimes with non -Germans main suspects were
found . Maybe the most publicized case was the one of 2015 /2016 New Year's E ve events in
Cologne when there were mass sexual assaults by men of North African looking, as the most of
the victims declared. There were 1,168 reported crimes, of which 492 sexual assaults confirmed
by Cologne p ublic prosecutor , Ulrich Bremer .31 However, this case has led Germans and even
worldwide population to a perception that sex crimes are committed by migrants/refugee s and that
it has become a major issue.
As we mentioned, Germans have become worried and they took the lead by implementing
a very helpful project, in terms of raising awareness, and based on particular police administrations
data and declarations in Germany , they made up a platform where they are publish ing all crimes
committed by migrants/refugees. If you wonder why are they doing this and who is behind this

29 UNHCR, Eurostat , “A welcoming Europe?“
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/external/html/welcomingeurope/default_en.htm , Accessed 25.01.2019
30 Ibid.
31 Yermi Brenner and Katrin Ohlendorf , “Time for the facts. What do we know about Cologne four months later? ”,
https://thecorrespondent.com/4401/time -for-the-facts -what -do-we-know -about -cologne -four-months –
later/1073698080444 -e20ada1b Accessed 28.01.2019

project, they declared the following : „This project is solely supported by people that feel very
concerned about their own and their famil ies' safety. We are not organized in any political party
but form a network of average citizens that e ngage together via the internet. Our goal is not to
defame or offend people. We just close the gap the mainstream media leave due to their flawed
and inco mplete coverage of this issue.”32 According to this platform, between 2015 -2018 the
numbers of reported crimes committed by migrants /refugees in Germany look like this:
 Physical Sexual Harassment: 2747
 Verbal sexual harassment : 939
 Exhibitionism : 1076
 Rape (attem pted): 639
 Rape (completed ): 613
 Forced prostitution : 40
 Sexual abuse in swimming pools : 247
 Other s: 172 33
This means that during four years, there were 6.473 of sexual crimes committed only by
non-Germans. On the other hand, we have also deeply analyzed data issues by The Federal
Criminal Police Office of Germany in order to have a reliable source , and we were not surprised
to see that numbers are quite different. In their report on rape and sexual ass ault/abuse in Germany
from 2013 to 2017, das Bundeskriminalamt reported that in 2013, 6.077 cases of rape/sexual abuse
were registered , 1.755 of suspects being of other nationality than German ; the number of cases
increased at 6.223 attacks in 2016 and reached the peak -point in 201 7 when there have been
confirmed 9.318 cases and 3.483 migrant/refugee suspects. After a short calculation we concluded
that between 2013 -2017, The Federal Crim inal Police Office of Germany has identified 11.613
non-German suspects in 33.249 cases of sexual crime. Again, there is a difference between The
Federal Criminal Police Office 's official data and the ones that are revealed by Eurostat, where the
statistics for r ecorded sexual offences , but only between 2013 -2016, are the following: 141.720

32 Refcrime , “Refugee and Migr ant Crime Map ”, Accessed 28.01.2019, https://www.refcrime.info/en/Misc/FAQ
33 Refcrime , “Refugee and Migrant Crime Map ”, Accessed 28.01.2019
https://www.refcrime.info/en/Crime/Relevance?Mode=1&From=01.01.2015&Order=&OrderBy=&Page=1

cases of sexual violence, 29.694 cases of rape and 112.026 of sexual assaults, resulting in a total
of 283.440 sexual crimes in four years.34
Due to these statis tics and maybe because of very adve rtised cases of sexual abuses,
Germany’s lead become aw are of the fac t that German crimin al codes are too permissive and at
the end of 2016, a reform of the sexual criminal law was carried out, which led to changes in the
German Penal Code in 2017. Due to the fundamental reorganization of Section 17735(Sexual
assault by use of force or threats; rape ), the previously valid sex criminal law was given a
completely new structure . The newly introduced basic offense of sexual assault requires no act of
coercion. Newly created were the "sexual harassment" and "offenses from groups" for the first
time explicitly criminali zed and also t he offense of "sexual harassment" was recorded for the first
time in 2017 as a sexual offense.36
In an attempt of having a strong basis of our argume nts, we will now analyze the case of
Sweden, the othe r EU member state that took one o f the largest proportion of refugees and have
openly welcomed them, demonstrati ng that its democracy goes beyond the borders. Many times
in the last years , Sweden was described as „the rape capital of the West” , this claim is more valid
since the migrants/refugees arrived in this state, but some statistics have to be analyzed in order to
find out if the immigrants are to blame for the increases in sexual crim inality. According to
Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention , 2.4 % of the population said that they have been
exposed to sex offenses in 2016, which compared to 2015 represents an increase when only 1.7 %
of the population stated that they have been aggressed . In the same vein, the fact that „the level of
sex offenses remained relatively stable during the period 2005 – 2012, but after that, there has
been an increase" , could be directly related to the entering of the migrants/ refugees in Sweden, or
it could be only a coincidence. The same statistics show that the number of s exual molestation s,
rapes and sexual coercion/ exploitation was around 17.000 in 2011, with some fluctuations in the
years to come, but reaching 20.326 in 2014 and then increas ing at almost 22.000 in 2017.37

34 Eurostat, “ Third count ry nationals found to be illegally present – annual data”, Accessed 25.01.2019
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do
35 German C riminal Code in the version promulgated on 13 November 1998 , https://www.gesetze -im-
internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1562 , Accessed 26.01.2019
36 Bundeslagebild, “Kriminali tät im Kontext von Zuwanderung ” (2017 ), 4
37 Brottsförebyggande rådet, “ Rape and sexual offenses ”, https://www.bra.se/bra -in-english/ home/crime -and-
statistics/rape -and-sex-offences.html , Accessed 01.02.2019

However, if we check Eurostat's database, we may observe again a difference between their data
and the national ones as according to E urostat, in 2014 were recorded 33.417 offenses ( sexual
violence, rape, sexual assault), and 30.100 in 201638, compared with 20.326 (2014) and 20,284
(2016) – the number of cases issued by Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Based on the analysis presented, we now have to see if our hypothesis is valid or not. In
Germany’s case, we can say that our findings confirm our hypothesis as with the migrant/refugee
crisis, there were massive increases in sexual crimes . Based on The Federal Criminal Police Office
of Germany ’s statistics, we concluded that 5.5 % of the country’s population, represented by
Middle East ern and North Africa ns, have committed 37% of sexual crimes in 2017 . Anyway, this
percentage has increased during years, once with the migrants’ /refugees ’ flow: 27% of crimes in
2013, 31% in 2014, 33% in 2015 and 39% of sexual crimes committed in 2016.
The part that put us in difficulty and the one that limited our study was Sweden’s study as
it was impossible to find data related to the ethnicity of suspects of sexual crimes because Sweden
doesn't keep statistics on ethnicity and crime39, so we cannot see if the increase in sexual
criminality is because of the non -Swedish population or not. In this case, our hypothesis cannot be
truly confirmed but we also cannot deny the existence of a strong direct relationship between this
migrant/refugee crisis and the sudden increases in sexual criminality in both these states.
Furthermore, the evidence gathered and provided in the case of Germany is more than plain as it
highlights the migrants/refugees impact on social matters and it strongly supports and confirm our
hypothesis, but in order to have a stronger basis, an analysis like this, should be made in a future
research, for o ther EU’s member states that confront this problem.

CONCLUSIONS
In our attempt of illustrating a small part of the worrying events that have escalated in
Europe in the last years, this article showed how necessary it is for the European Union to take
some measures that will solve the aftermath of the migrant/refugee European crisis. Following the
analysis, we have done, it can be affirmed that the European Union did not pass one of the most
difficult tests it had to face in the last years. This migrant /refugee crisis has shown that EU , as a

38 Eurostat, “Third country nationals found to be illegally present – annual data”, Accessed 01.02.2019
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do
39 Lee Roden, “ Why Sweden doesn't keep stats on ethnicity and crime ”, (May, 2018)
https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why -sweden -doesnt -keep -stats -on-ethnic -background -and-crime

community , is not so harmonious and internally tightly bound as the Europeans are still suffering
because of the consequences of increases in criminality in terms of sexual aggression . As
mentioned before, the official data and statistics showed that in Germany's case, the number of
migrants/refugees has directly influenced the number of rapes, sexual abuses, physical and v erbal
sexual harassment . Furthermore, in Sweden’s case, even if Swedish National Council for Crime
Prevention’s database is not “complete” as some statistics on crime and ethnicity would be needed,
the gathered information tends to confirm our assumption. Hopefully, this study is only a basis for
future in -depth analys is on this matter.

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