Police are receiving more reports of sexual violence than ever before, but crime surveys suggest that does not reflect an uptick in attacks but rather a greater willingness to report them.
Researchers from the University of Helsinki found that one and a half percent of respondents to the National Victims of Crime survey said they had experienced sexual assault in 2018.
That's the same figure as in the same survey in 2016.
The survey found that some 2.4 percent of women had experienced sexual violence in 2018, compared to 0.6 percent of men.
Assaults were most prevalent among those aged 15-24, with 3.7 percent of respondents in that age band saying they had been assaulted.
Researchers from the university’s Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy interviewed some 5,500 people resident in Finland and aged between 15 and 74 in late 2019. The survey has been carried out every two years since 2012.
Reports of sexual assaults to police, on the other hand, have increased dramatically. In 2014 for example police received complaints of 940 rapes, aggravated rapes or attempted rapes.
That had risen to 1,400 in 2018, indicating a clear rise in reports to police that is not mirrored in the victims of crime study.
Researchers put that discrepancy down to a greater willingness to report assaults, as most sex crimes go unreported.