Why are rapes without violence punished much more severely?

Is it really that much more serious to not ensure consent before sex than to strangle the woman you live with until she thinks she is going to die?

As it stands today: yes. Sebastian was sentenced to three years in prison for rape. Photo: JENNY STRINDLÖVAlmost every time Markus gets away with probation. Photo: PRIVATE

In the verdicts and the preliminary investigation reports, the women Markus lived with testify about how they feared for their lives. For the lives of their children. There are strangulations and bruises, burns and death anxiety. A broken foot, a knife to the throat, to the thigh.

Every woman has at some point thought he was going to kill her. That now it’s over. That now she’ll never see her children again.

Almost every time, Markus, whose real name is something else, escapes with probation. He gets chance after chance. The judgments emphasize that Markus needs support and help, and when I read them, I can’t help but think of Sebastian.

Sebastian was in his final year of high school and had never been convicted of a crime before when he met a girl at a bar. They made out and after a while he inserted one or two fingers inside her. He says he first asked if it was okay and she said yes. She says she doesn’t remember asking any questions, that she just froze. The incident was over in a few minutes. The district court sentenced Sebastian to three years in prison for rape.

Cut to 2025 when the repeat offender Markus is convicted of aggravated assault on a woman, unlawful threats, molestation and child endangerment – and gets away with probation and treatment. If the district court had chosen prison instead, the sentence would still not have been even half of what Sebastian received.

Why is it considered so much less serious to repeatedly threaten women and children with death and to beat one’s wives and girlfriends until they believe they are going to die, than to violate someone else’s sexual integrity on a single occasion?

When I reviewed the effects of the Consent Act last year, I was struck by how seriously legislators view sexual crimes. Now, when I examine repeated cases of violations of women’s privacy, I am struck by the opposite.

In 2022, the minimum sentence for both rape and sexual assault was increased.

To be convicted of rape, no violence or threats are required. It’s just that you didn’t check carefully enough whether the other person was really involved in every step of the sexual act. For a man to be convicted of gross violation of a woman’s privacy, he must have repeatedly and over time committed a crime against the woman he lives or has lived with, for example through assault, unlawful threats, unlawful coercion and violation of a restraining order. The same year that the minimum sentence for rape was increased to three years, the minimum sentence for gross violation of a woman’s privacy was increased to one year. Repeatedly hitting, threatening and violating a woman in her own home thus results in a third of the sentence that rape without violence gives.

Despite the fact that the risk of recurrence is clearly higher when it comes to sexual assault, and despite the fact that the women feel death anxiety and suffer over time, it is still not considered as serious.

After listening to the women who have been subjected to the respective crimes, I can’t help but wonder: Why?