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The tongues of tongues

Misuse of statistics causes non-western immigrants to be blamed for two out of three rapes in Norway.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

[rape] The notion of the dark-skinned man lurking behind every bush to rape Norwegian women has been well nourished lately. The assault rapes in Oslo have led the police to show phantom drawings of African men and warn women not to go home alone in the dark.

And the politicians have followed up: Rita Sletner (V), the head of the rape committee, has asked the imams to put an end to the rape wave, while "the strangers" have had their passport written in the parliament.

- We must tackle the problem where it is actually greatest, and then it is unfortunately an indisputable fact that the majority of those who rape or abuse women have their origins in Muslim countries in Africa and Asia, said FRP's parliamentary representative Christian Tybring-Gjedde from the Storting's rostrum on 5 March this year.

Tybring-Gjedde's use of numbers fits in with a pattern of statistical use which means that the following picture has taken hold in the public eye: Immigrants – often synonymous with non-Western immigrants – are behind two out of three rapes in Norway.

However, this is based on a dubious use of rape statistics from the Oslo police, which even the police's own experts warn against.

At the same time, statistics and surveys that give a completely different picture are passed over in silence. Who has heard of the survey from Trondheim in 2002 which established that Norwegians were behind at least four out of five rapes? Or about Statistics Norway's figures from the same year which showed that Norwegians accounted for 85 per cent of sexual crime in Norway – including rape and sexual intercourse with children under 16 years of age?

- Generalized far too much

The figures that are now established as truth in the debate about rape and immigrants are taken from the Oslo police, who first published figures on rape and perpetrator's land background in 2000. The corresponding figures were presented for the years 2001 and 2004 in the report "Rape in Oslo 2004 ».

The statistics are based on reported rapes and attempted rape in the Oslo police district. Based on the 2004 statistics, immigrants, representing 22,3 per cent of Oslo's population, perform very poorly: Of the 110 reported rapes, 65 per cent of them were perpetrators with land background outside Norway (including Europeans and Americans). 50 percent had land backgrounds from Asia, Africa or the Middle East. But it's not that simple.

- I wonder what you really want with the numbers. It is generalized far too much. Violent conclusions cannot be drawn from the statistics, says Marianne Sætre, senior adviser at the Oslo police district.

Sætre, together with an adviser to the Oslo police district, Veslemøy Grytdal, is behind the report "Rape in Oslo 2004".

Sætre points out that all investigations of the extent and darkness of the rape conclude that only a small part of the rape that occurs in society is reported to the police. In Norway and Sweden, it is estimated that as many as nine out of ten rapes are not reported.

More than other types of crimes, rape is characterized by shame and guilt. Both traditional power relations between gender and fear of negative sanctions make the victim reluctant to go for review, especially where perpetrators and offenders are close friends or family members.

Because of this, Sætre and Grytdal conclude the following in the report: “The rape material reported to the Oslo Police District does not therefore provide a picture of all rapes committed in Oslo in the year 2004. It is not possible to draw general conclusions about the profile of rapes in Oslo based on the results of this investigation, which only show the characteristics of the reported rape. "

Over a low shoe

Nevertheless, it is generalized over a low shoe in the Norwegian debate. Also by the management of the Oslo police. This exchange of views took place in NRK's ​​debate program Standpoint on February 27 this year:

Host Nina Owing: – The statistics, the last we have are from 2004, it shows that 65 percent of all assault rapes were carried out by an immigrant, ie one with a non-ethnic Norwegian background. What kind of measures do you want to implement?

Oslo's Deputy Chief of Police Hans Halvorsen: – It is probably 65 percent of the rapes, not only the assault rapes, but 65 percent…

Host Nina Owing: – Of all the rapes?

Oslo's Deputy Chief of Police Hans Halvorsen: – Yes, all [perpetrators] do not have an ethnic Norwegian background.

The deputy chief of police then went on to say – without reference to any statistics – that he "assumes" that the number of perpetrators with an immigrant background is even greater as a percentage if you include the dark numbers. Despite repeated requests from Ny Tid, Halvorsen has not responded to criticism of his way of using numbers.

Concepts sauced together

The Progress Party's justice policy spokesman, Jan Arild Ellingsen, goes even further and uses figures from the Oslo police from 2000 to establish that two out of three perpetrators are non-Western immigrants. In a post in Dagbladet on March 4 this year, Ellingsen writes: «The figures showed that as many as two out of three reported perpetrators in the year 2000 were immigrants. A total of 111 people were reported for rape that year. Of the 111 reported, 72 were of non-Western origin [ed.

Both Sætre and Grytdal from the Oslo police refute Ellingsen's use of their statistics. In "Rape in Oslo 2004" they compare figures from 2004 with figures from 2001 and 2000.

- Our figures from 2000 showed that two out of three reported were immigrants, not that two out of three reported were non-western immigrants, says Sætre.

In this way, the terms immigrants and not Western immigrants are sauced together, although the category of immigrants also includes people from the Western world.

Statistics Norway also warns against using the Oslo police statistics to generalize.

- The warning lights should light up immediately. First, the dark numbers mean that reservations should be made about the perpetrator's background. Secondly, there are significant differences between Oslo and the rest of the country, says Reid J. Stene, senior adviser and group leader for crime statistics at Statistics Norway.

But Statistics Norway does not only have objections to the way in which the Oslo police statistics are used in public. The experts there simply believe that the number of rapes is too low for statistics to be based on the victim's and perpetrator's country background.

- The statistics are based on figures from just over a hundred reviews. The fact that the number of reported perpetrators from Africa, for example, increased from ten per cent in 2001 to 19,1 per cent in 2004, says little about the development and may just as well be a coincidence. A gang rape will, for example, have a major impact in the category of country background and continents in the Oslo police statistics, says Stene.

Norwegians behind 85 percent

Ny Tid's investigations show that there is a lack of scientific statistics that can say something certain about the relationship between rape and the perpetrator's country background. But there are statistics and surveys that point in a different direction than that two out of three perpetrators are immigrants. There is even less evidence to claim that one in three perpetrators are non-Western immigrants.

In a report from Statistics Norway on immigrants (2004), there are statistics from 2002 that show immigration categories of convicted persons based on different types of offenses. One of the categories is sexual crime. The bag designation does not only include rapes of adults, as the Oslo police statistics show. Statistics Norway also includes sexual intercourse with children under the age of 16 – with three times as many convicts as for rapes of adults – as well as incest, pornography and other sexually abusive behavior.

This statistic showed that Norwegians accounted for 85 percent of the punished, while non-Western immigrants accounted for 12 percent of the punished (non-Western immigrants make up 6,1 percent of the population in Norway).

- That almost nine out of ten convicted of sexual crimes had a Norwegian background, rarely comes to light when these topics are addressed, Stene says.

Another statistic that has been bypassed in silence can be read in the organization Men Against Violence (MMV) rape survey from 2002. It is based on a survey of almost 2000 women in Trondheim. The organization emphasizes that it is not scientific in a strict sense. They therefore interpret the figures from the survey conservatively and thus believe to have good evidence for their findings. One of them is about the perpetrator's ethnic background.

- Our survey showed that at least 80 percent of the abuses in Norway were committed by Norwegians. But the number can be much higher due to the fact that some of the rapes took place abroad where we do not know the perpetrator's background, says MMV leader Markus Sorge.

He is appalled by politicians' statements about rape and immigrants, not least the statement by Frps Tybring-Gjedde that the majority of abusers originate in Muslim countries in Africa and Asia.

- We found that only five percent of the abuses were reported. To base generalizing statements on a statistic that one should know minimally reflects the actual number of abuses is either gross public stupidity or racism of the most primitive kind. You see what you want to see: That your own ethnicity is qualitatively better than others. That's what racism is about.

- The threshold for notifying a foreigner may be lower

- The threshold for notifying a foreigner may be lower than notifying a Norwegian. This can be a logically good enough explanation for the Oslo figures, and there are several good possible explanations for this. Statistics on reported abuses thus say nothing about the actual circumstances. MMV has really unequivocally documented this, Sorge states.

No matter how you turn it around: Even based on the statistics from the Oslo police district, there are no grounds for saying that Muslims are in the majority among abusers in Norway, or that two out of three perpetrators are non-Western immigrants.

The exaggerated focus on the dark-skinned man who threatens behind a bush hides an equally real danger for women: the white Norwegian in a safe, private environment.

If one is to first read the Oslo statistics the Fanden reads the Bible, one could just as well quote the figures that show that the number of rape victims with immigrant backgrounds increased sharply from 17,4 per cent in 2001 to 37,7 per cent in 2004. Consequently, immigrants are overrepresented among the victims. . But such reading warns the experts against.

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