The Local.se reported that it would be up to the council to decide which factors — a particular type of situation or perpetrator, for example — were behind the deteriorating statistics.
In November, the council said in its annual report that the number sexual offenses and harassment in Sweden had significantly increased between 2012 and 2016. Over the period, the number of sexual offenses increased from 0.8 to 2.4 percent, while 5.5 percent of respondents said that they had faced different types of harassment in 2016, compared to 4.1 percent in 2012.
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The researchers pointed out that unlike thefts, sexual offenses and harassment were rarely reported to the police. The survey revealed that only 11 percent of victims of sexual offenses reported incidents to the police.