Racist attacks against Afro-Swedes 'most common hate crime in Sweden'
Six out of ten hate crimes against Afro-Swedes reported in Sweden involve verbal assaults or threats, often involving the n-word, insults about skin colour or origin, and dehumanising expressions, such as comparing the victim to a monkey, a survey by the Swedish Council on Crime Prevention has found.
The survey, Afrophobic hate crimes (Swedish), is based on an analysis of 430 reports of hate crimes against Afro-Swedes, as well as 16 in-depth interviews with victims, and was carried out as part of the last government's 2016 Action Plan Against Racism.
Lisa Wallin, one of the two investigators who carried out the survey, said that Afro-Swedes who were victims of hate crimes reported that they had had a significant impact on them.
"Those interviewed described the consequences of the crime both in the short and the long term, and both for the individual and for society more broadly," she said in a press release.
She said that Afro-Swedes' vulnerability to hate crimes contributed to "resignation and a feeling of exclusion".
The fact that hate crimes are often unpredictable and occur in many different contexts can also lead to a state of constant readiness," she said.
The most common place where hate crimes against Afro-Swedes occur is on the streets and in public transport, but there are also frequent attacks in schools or work places, near to people's homes and on the internet.
Although verbal assaults were most common, one fifth of the reported attacks (18 percent) were violent assaults, which is a higher rate than for Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, or other xenophobic hate crimes.
Only two percent of the crimes were discrimination, with those mostly about people being refused entry to nightclubs.
More than three-quarters of the reported perpetrators and six out of ten of the victims are men, but women often face a combination of racist and mysogynistic abuse. According to the researchers insults combining the n-word with the word hora, meaning a prostitute, are common.
Young people are particularly at risk of abuse. Four out of ten of those reporting that they have been subject to violent racist attacks were under 18, the youngest was seven, and the oldest was only 51.
Several of the interviewees said that they had faced serious long-term consequences from the abuse, such as depression and being off work sick, while others spoke of a sense of alienation.
The interviewees also described Afro-Swedes' low level of confidence in Sweden's criminal justice system, and particularly in the police, who they claimed tend to assume that black people were potential suspects rather than crime victims.
"The police reports we analysed showed that the rate at which crimes are solved is low when it comes to hate crimes against Afro-Swedes, something which is the case generally when it comes to hate crimes as they are often crimes which are hard to investigate," the report reads.
Interviewees said they were aware that reporting hate crimes to the police seldom ends in the perpetrator being found guilty, which the investigators suggested might indicate that significantly more hate crimes are committed against Afro-Swedes than are ever reported.
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The survey, Afrophobic hate crimes (Swedish), is based on an analysis of 430 reports of hate crimes against Afro-Swedes, as well as 16 in-depth interviews with victims, and was carried out as part of the last government's 2016 Action Plan Against Racism.
Lisa Wallin, one of the two investigators who carried out the survey, said that Afro-Swedes who were victims of hate crimes reported that they had had a significant impact on them.
"Those interviewed described the consequences of the crime both in the short and the long term, and both for the individual and for society more broadly," she said in a press release.
She said that Afro-Swedes' vulnerability to hate crimes contributed to "resignation and a feeling of exclusion".
The fact that hate crimes are often unpredictable and occur in many different contexts can also lead to a state of constant readiness," she said.
The most common place where hate crimes against Afro-Swedes occur is on the streets and in public transport, but there are also frequent attacks in schools or work places, near to people's homes and on the internet.
Although verbal assaults were most common, one fifth of the reported attacks (18 percent) were violent assaults, which is a higher rate than for Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, or other xenophobic hate crimes.
Only two percent of the crimes were discrimination, with those mostly about people being refused entry to nightclubs.
More than three-quarters of the reported perpetrators and six out of ten of the victims are men, but women often face a combination of racist and mysogynistic abuse. According to the researchers insults combining the n-word with the word hora, meaning a prostitute, are common.
Young people are particularly at risk of abuse. Four out of ten of those reporting that they have been subject to violent racist attacks were under 18, the youngest was seven, and the oldest was only 51.
Several of the interviewees said that they had faced serious long-term consequences from the abuse, such as depression and being off work sick, while others spoke of a sense of alienation.
The interviewees also described Afro-Swedes' low level of confidence in Sweden's criminal justice system, and particularly in the police, who they claimed tend to assume that black people were potential suspects rather than crime victims.
"The police reports we analysed showed that the rate at which crimes are solved is low when it comes to hate crimes against Afro-Swedes, something which is the case generally when it comes to hate crimes as they are often crimes which are hard to investigate," the report reads.
Interviewees said they were aware that reporting hate crimes to the police seldom ends in the perpetrator being found guilty, which the investigators suggested might indicate that significantly more hate crimes are committed against Afro-Swedes than are ever reported.
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