Violent crime and crime victims

Fredrik Kärrholm (M)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating the Committee on Justice's report on violent crime and crime victims in connection with the motions raised during the general motion period on this area.

In the consideration, over 150 motions are addressed. The motions concern violence in close relationships, child marriages, virginity checks, sexual offenses, child pornography, the vulnerability of the elderly to fraud, threats against journalists, and more. These motions describe the many fearsome and appalling problems that exist in society and demonstrate the importance of doing more to support, help, and protect.

The government is now working intensively to prevent and combat crime, insecurity, and abuse in all its forms. This work is based on the Tidö Agreement and is a striving to fundamentally change crime policy. The focus is shifted from the perpetrator to ensuring the crime victim's right to redress and the crime victim's well-being. Society shall be protected from crime.

I want to particularly emphasize the work against men's violence against women. It is a serious societal problem that causes great suffering for those who are subjected to it. The extent of the vulnerability is difficult to understand if one has not at any point met the vulnerable women and their children. In recent years, an average of 15 women have been murdered per year by a former or current partner. All too many are subjected to violence in close relationships.

Mr. Speaker! The previous Alliance government commissioned several inquiries to strengthen the work against men's violence against women, and these formed the basis for a national ten-year strategy against the problems. The strategy is now being supplemented with a program containing concrete measures to further prevent and combat men's violence against women. A new program will now be introduced which shall apply for the period 2024-2026, that is, the remaining period of the previous ten-year strategy.

Violent crime and crime victims

Mr. Speaker! The government shall improve the protection and support for those who need protected housing. The children's rights perspective shall also be strengthened for the children who accompany their mother – it is usually the mother – to a protected housing. Additionally, restraining orders shall become more powerful. To increase the protection of the crime victim, restraining orders in cases of a particularly serious threat shall be able to be extended to an entire municipality. It is the perpetrator's, not the victim's, freedom of movement that shall be restricted.

The Social Services Act must also be reformed. Sharper penalties and tougher measures against the perpetrators of violence are needed. At the same time, it is also important to strengthen crime prevention work. There is no contradiction here, as is sometimes claimed from this rostrum.

Mr. Speaker! Honor killing is a particularly serious problem. It most often and worst affects girls and young women. The threat and violence then come not from an individual man but usually from an entire family or clan, sometimes even an entire neighborhood.

There are few in society who are as vulnerable as the girls and women, but also boys and young men, who are subjected to this honor oppression. It also concerns serious physical violations against very small children in the form of genital mutilations.

The honor persecution in Sweden is unfortunately enormous. Hundreds of thousands of young people are vulnerable, and girls are affected the most. It concerns restrictions on clothing choices, not being allowed to participate in swimming lessons, not being allowed to go to parties or not being allowed to participate in the class trip when it involves an overnight stay. Many are not allowed to date—naturally—and many are completely forbidden from socializing with boys outside the family. Partners to marry are chosen or approved by the family. Young women are subjected to unscientific, humiliating virginity checks.

Those who dare to defy honor norms run a great risk of being abused both physically and mentally. The worst consequence is honor killing. "Balcony girls" is the term used in the press for the young girls who are murdered by being thrown from balconies. It is a terrible phenomenon, in the true sense of the word.

The government is now intensifying the work against honor-related violence and oppression and intends, among other things, to criminalize virginity checks, virginity certificates, and virginity operations. Existing penalties shall be tightened, and the justice system shall receive more resources.

In the budget bill for 2023, the government also proposes that the work against honor-related oppression shall be strengthened by permanently increasing the preventive work by 50 million kronor per year. The government has also allocated 20 million annually for state grants to the organizing of women and girls in vulnerable areas.

It pleases me to see that there is a broad consensus in Sweden's Riksdag that this constitutes serious problems and that more needs to be done to combat men's violence against women and honor oppression, as well as otherwise support, help and protect those exposed to violence and victims of crime in all parts of society.

Mr. Speaker! The government's policy involves, as has been said, a shift in perspective. Now, the needs and interests of crime victims are being put in focus, and it belongs to the government's prioritized areas to combat just violent crime. Thus, a broad and extensive work is being conducted in the areas the motions concern. And against this background, I move for approval of the proposal in the report and rejection of all motions.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Sanna Backeskog (S)

Mr. Speaker! That Jeanette was subjected to severe violence by her partner for a long period is established. When she was found dead on the bathroom floor, she had ten broken ribs, a broken nose, and severe head injuries. The person who kicked and hit her was her partner.

My mother did not deserve to die like that, says Jeanette's daughter in the media.

Every day, women and girls are subjected to harassment, violence, and sexual crimes. The violence violates and restricts the victim's fundamental freedoms and rights, and the violence also affects the children who are forced to witness the abuses. To fall victim to violence in the home as a child increases the risk of subjecting others or becoming a victim oneself in adulthood.

The perpetrators are present in all social groups and have all different backgrounds, and it is violence that has occurred in all times. Every form of violence or threat of violence against women limits the safety and freedom even for those women who are not exposed themselves. As long as a single woman is harmed by her partner or former partner, we have not done enough.

The violence unfortunately does not automatically end because the woman leaves the relationship. In many cases, it escalates. Post-violence can involve, for example, stalking and threats, economic violence, psychological violence, or using the children as a weapon to get to the woman in, for example, custody disputes.

I particularly want to mention the women and children who live in hiding. Society's support for these families is lacking. Many women can testify to this. It concerns everything from social services booking meetings in a way that allows the man to find the woman, to not being able to visit doctors, being called for health examinations, or obtaining a phone subscription because one cannot disclose their personal identity number.

Over a long series of years, the Social Democrats in government have step by step ensured that we have received more police officers with better tools and stricter punishments. The police have reinforced the work on men's violence against women with 350 new investigators. The consent law, which makes it even clearer that sex that is not voluntary is illegal, constitutes one of the milestones. In government, we tightened the penalties for several sexual offenses, as well as for assault, aggravated violation of a woman's peace, and violation of a restraining order. It is now a crime to expose a child to seeing and hearing crimes of violence in a close relationship. The child exposed to this is also considered a crime victim in the meaning of the law.

But that is obviously not enough.

Mr. Speaker! Best for crime victims is, of course, if crimes are never committed. Therefore, we Social Democrats will always prioritize both harsher sentences and preventive measures. Sweden needs an equal school system across the entire country and a strong community life. Social services and the police must be given the conditions to cooperate in a long-term and preventive manner.

I feel great concern about the consequences of the austerity measures that municipalities and regions now face. With large holes in the funding of the welfare system, the conditions for municipalities, regions, and civil society to both work preventatively and provide the right support to the vulnerable are being worsened.

The 13 billion it cost when the government and the Sweden Democrats lowered the tax for high-income earners would have definitely done more good in our collective work. Many crime victims can testify to what fantastic support our crime support associations, for example Brottsofferjouren and the women's shelters, can provide. They need long-term funding and security, because there is a very special power in civil society.

When I met those who work at Kvinnojouren Stöttan in my home county of Gävleborg, they said something like this: When we go to national meetings and trainings, the question of funding is always raised, whether we will even be allowed to remain next year and be able to continue supporting women and their children who are victims of violence.

Mr. Speaker! In conclusion, I would like to say something about some of our reservations.

When it comes to those who intend to address violence against women, we Social Democrats see a risk in that too much responsibility is placed on the vulnerable. She must dare to leave him. She must gather evidence and report it. She must protect her children, and she must live in hiding.

We want restraining orders to be granted to a greater extent and more often combined with an ankle bracelet. A zero vision for men's violence against women should be established. Stockholm Police's method of work, Initiative Gryning, which has a particular focus on finding and prosecuting the perpetrators, should be implemented throughout the country.

We Social Democrats also want a "lex Lotta" to be introduced. Far too many women are left alone and fall between two chairs. This is also shown in the report "Utan mig är du helt ensam" by the Gävle researcher Sara Skoog Waller. When a woman has been murdered by a man despite having expressed a need for help, the relevant authority must report itself under lex Lotta. If there are deficiencies in competence, handling, or routines, these must be detected and addressed.

Mr. Speaker! We have many important reservations in this report. I stand behind all of them, but for the sake of time, I move for approval of only reservation 41 from motion 70 in our committee motion on a crime victim law.

We Social Democrats know that society is at its best when we stick together. But often, crime victims feel that society does not stand by them to a sufficient extent. The feeling of being left alone after being affected by a crime is all too common. The position and rights of crime victims must be strengthened, and the rights must be equal and egalitarian.

Crime victims have today a right to protection, support, and information. However, a law that gathers these rights is missing. This makes it difficult to orient oneself among laws, rules, and different actors in order to claim one's rights. Several crime victim organizations also report that there are large differences in what type of support one can receive depending on where in the country one lives.

We Social Democrats want to see a victim of crime law that clarifies what support society provides to victims of crime regardless of the type of crime. It is repeated petty crimes and fraud, which particularly affect the elderly, or when someone receives threats for their opinions. It is victims of violence in close relationships, for men's violence against women or for violence in a context of honor, and it is parents who lose their children in fatal violence - perhaps the most horrific thing a parent can be affected by. We also see that children's rights and specific vulnerability must be emphasized in a victim of crime law.

All of society's collective resources must be there for you as a crime victim. For us Social Democrats, it is a matter of redress, respect, and justice.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Torsten Elofsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! The Christian Democratic crime policy is based on a realistic insight that man is imperfect and that crimes against fellow human beings and against society will unfortunately always exist. At the same time, the effort from the state's side must always be to counteract and limit crime as far as it is at all possible within the frameworks and powers of the catalogs of rights and the rule of law.

Justice is about the right action in relation to our fellow human beings. Justice is a fundamental value that, in a community, presupposes a balance between people's interests, rights, and obligations. This balance of justice is disturbed when someone commits a crime and thus acts unjustly. It is then the public's task to administer justice and restore the balance as far as possible.

Tightening the penalties for crimes can have several grounds for movement. From the Christian Democratic ideology, it is relevant that the penalties should be just. The starting point is to dispense justice, assess guilt, and enable redress.

Mr. Speaker! The person who has been subjected to a crime should know that the state power stands in solidarity with the victim and takes a stand against the one who caused the pain and insecurity. The person who has committed a serious crime deserves a harsh punishment so that the balance of justice shall be restored. In this way, the debt is atoned for. The victim's perspective shall be the most heavily weighted because it is the crime victim who has been wronged. But it is easy to forget that even the perpetrator's rehabilitation fundamentally concerns atoning for the crime by serving a just punishment.

Safeguarding the care of the vulnerable and the weak has always been a driving force for the Christian Democrats, whether it concerns healthcare, elderly care, or crime. We have a well-founded victim's perspective that permeates our view on crime policy. Lenient sentences remove the possibility of moral redress.

Many of the problems we see today are due to a lack of ethics and morality. Morality affects a person's tendency to commit crimes. The erosion of norms that has paved the way for the development of criminality that we are now witnessing must be reversed. There is a nihilism among many criminals where nothing is sacred. It leads to shootings and sexual offenses, for what is another human being worth? Not much in the eyes of the perpetrators of violence.

At the same time as we expand the police and tighten the penalties for criminals, the importance of basic values needs to be highlighted much more. There are far too many who live their lives without a moral compass. It is because of these ethically lost residents that mothers lose their teenage children in shootings and young girls and women have a knot of anxiety in their stomachs when they go out in the evening.

Mr. Speaker! That is why tangible support for parents is of great importance. Positive role models in, for example, sports clubs should not be underestimated. Social services must be given tools to be able to intervene in time. The school, which is such an important part of upbringing and norm-formation, needs to provide order and clarity where every offense receives clear consequences.

Working preventatively is about making a difference for the future through early interventions, often at a relatively low cost. It is about safe families, schools with a focus on learning, the possibility of family counseling, a strong education system, and the opportunity to find a job and a home. The preventative work needs to be re-evaluated and given a more prominent place in the political debate.

A broad reform of criminal law is required, as well as a settlement with the legal philosophy that has disregarded the fundamental importance of natural law, and with the criminology that to a large extent has taken socioeconomic factors into account and in large parts had a perpetrator perspective instead of a crime victim perspective.

Mr. Speaker! With this said, it can be stated that an intensive work is currently underway with a comprehensive review of the current criminal law covering all parts of the crimes addressed in the motions that are proposed to be dismissed. The speaker from the Moderaterna highlighted and went through quite thoroughly what work is underway.

There will be a shift from a perpetrator perspective to a crime victim perspective. It is an extensive task, but we Christian Democrats are convinced that we are on the right track and that we will obtain legislation that is in step with a changed criminality.

Finally, I also want to say, Mr. Speaker, that an important crime-preventive measure is actually the solving of crimes. Moving forward, it is a matter of focusing on increased crime solving. The risk of detection and prosecution of those who commit crimes must increase. Stricter sentences and an increased risk of detection must go hand in hand. If the risk of detection is perceived as negligible, it is nothing that deters either motivated perpetrators or young people who allow themselves to be recruited by the gangs.

I would like to emphasize once again that this is the most important thing we have ahead of us. We can tighten the penalties as much as we want – as long as we do not solve the crimes, we will still have difficulty combating serious crime.

With this said, I move for approval of the committee's proposal.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Katja Nyberg (SD)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating the report on Violence Crimes and Victims of Crime.

Instead of protecting the crime victims, naive politicians have for a long time systematically promoted a "pity-the-criminal" mentality. Crime has been explained in terms of social problems, poverty, and exclusion. As a consequence of this weak and naive attitude, the criminal justice system has been characterized by low sentences, sentence reductions, and parole.

All this complacency is, to say the least, provoking, and even worse is that we do not even have the strength to take a stand against people who should not be in the country. Even when prosecutors demand deportation, convicted perpetrators many times escape deportation with the justification that they have a strong connection to Sweden. The concern for the offender weighs, for some strange reason, heavier than the concern for the victim.

This is obviously completely wrong. It is not the criminals who should be protected, but the one who is subjected to a crime. The one who does not put the victim's rights before the criminal's rights fails not only the victim and its relatives; they also fail all the people who risk becoming the next crime victim.

Mr. Speaker! Serious crime today consumes enormous resources within the police operations. The violence, the shootings, and the explosions drain all strength from the already heavily strained police. A direct consequence of this is that the police are forced to prioritize away crimes that are admittedly considered serious – but not sufficiently serious. That the police refer to the fact that there are many much more serious crimes that require their attention is extremely worrying.

These deficiencies in the justice system result in the consequence that so-called volume crimes such as bicycle thefts, fraud, identity theft, and much more are never investigated. Everyday crime lies like a heavy, wet blanket over the citizens - something one simply has to contend with. An investigation that is dropped with the justification that the crime cannot be proven reinforces the feeling of insecurity. It reinforces the feeling of mistrust and, over time, undermines confidence in the entire justice system.

Even though the crime may seem small, the consequences for the person who is subjected to it can become extremely serious. The person who has been subjected to a burglary in their home knows that it is an enormous violation of the personal sphere. And without any possibility of redress, the only reason for a private individual to file a police report is so that they can receive compensation from their insurance company.

Within the framework of the Tidö Agreement, the rights of those who have been victims of crime shall be strengthened. The rules aimed at protecting crime victims and other vulnerable individuals shall be reviewed, for example, stricter rules for the probation period after parole. Today's relatively low compensation levels shall be raised and the regulatory framework for compensation to crime victims shall be improved. The administrative parts that currently fall on the crime victim in order for them to have their damages paid out shall be handled by the state, which means that the state will drive the process without the crime victim's involvement.

Mr. Speaker! The starting point in a healthy society must be that women and men are given the same opportunities and rights. Especially serious is the violence against women and children. Even though all insecurity is to be considered unacceptable, there is a significant difference between the genders, but unfortunately, the measures to combat deadly violence against women have been insufficient for several decades.

Over 300 women have been murdered by men close to them since the year 2000. We remember, for example, 2021, when it was reported in the media that five women were murdered in three weeks. So far this year, no fewer than eleven suspected femicides have occurred. In other words, the development is going in the wrong direction. It goes without saying that such a reality cannot be accepted.

Even more tragic is that there are indications that many of the people murdered by a close male relative have been in contact with the police, social services, or healthcare before the murder. In their life's most vulnerable moment, these people have asked for help and protection but have many times been met with no response, which is unacceptable. It is not worthy of a country like Sweden to have it that way. When an emergency call comes from a person in a matter of life or death, someone must answer, and in the answer, there must be solutions and measures to protect the one crying out for help. To be unable to help those who need support and help the most is a failure not worthy of a rule of law worthy of the name.

With this in mind, the government has taken several initiatives to counter men's violence against women as well as honor-related violence and oppression. The government intends to carry out a complete and comprehensive review of the penal code within the framework of the Tidö Agreement. The focus shall shift from the perpetrator to the crime victim, and the penalties shall consistently reflect the severity of the crimes. This means that serious crimes of violence and sexual offenses shall be punished more severely.

The government also intends to ensure that there is a presumption for detention in cases of suspected serious violation of a woman's integrity, so that men who assault women can be deprived of their liberty quickly. The government has also decided on additional directives for an ongoing investigation, which mean that restraining orders can cover a larger geographical area. Violent men shall be able to be prohibited from staying in the same municipality as their former partners.

Mr. Speaker! Regarding honor-based oppression, the government has already decided on additional directives to an ongoing investigation in order to, among other things, criminalize innocence checks and certificates of innocence. Furthermore, it appears from the Tidö Agreement that the government wants to tighten the penalties for a number of acts related to honor-based oppression, for example, forced marriage.

We in the Sweden Democrats, however, want to see further tightenings than those that were enacted in 2020. Children who are subjected to abuse need to be supported to a greater extent. A new criminal classification is needed that targets low-intensity violence and oppression, which shall also include the criminalization of acts for which individuals do not incur criminal liability or which, in combination, are not met with punishment that the degree of reproach justifies. This shall mean a criminalization of being married to a minor, regardless of how the marriage or the marriage-like connections came to be.

The proposed sentencing scale for child marriage, imprisonment for up to four years, is unjustifiably low - especially when compared with the sentencing scale for other similar crimes and considering that this is a matter of crimes against children of a very serious nature. Child marriage involves repeated rapes of children.

Everyone who has concrete influence over the children who are forced into marriage and contributes to this shall bear criminal liability. Effective measures against child marriage need to be developed. Those who continue to live as married with children shall be punished and, if possible, deported. All rules shall be designed so that it clearly appears that it can never be accepted that children are married in Sweden.

The Sweden Democrats also want what was addressed in the investigation Strengthend protection against forced marriages and child marriages from 2012 to be realized. There, better supervision, stricter requirements, and deeper dialogue with religious communities and officiants were proposed to stop weddings that involve forced or child marriages. Requirements shall be placed on religious communities and officiants to demonstrate zero tolerance towards forced marriages and child marriages.

All this combined constitutes an arsenal of measures that actually aim for one thing: To make our country a safer place and our citizens safer people. There is a limit to how much a nation can endure. Sweden has passed that limit. Now is the time to make a complete turnaround that takes our country away from the harmful, weak left-wing politics. We shall move away from sentence reductions and adulation for criminals and towards a safer, more just and morally honorable country that sees who has the right to be protected and why.

This will, however, take time. It will take years to repair and build our justice system strong again. Thanks to the fact that we now have a government in place that listens and that sees and hears even the Sweden Democrats' positions, Sweden can now finally begin this work for safety.

I vote in favor of reservation 19.

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Juno Blom (L)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating a report on violent crime and crime victims. Behind the figures in the statistics lies an enormous suffering. Every violent crime has a crime victim and relatives who carry a suffering and a trauma every day, for several years, if not for their entire lives.

I am proud that we have a government that has a clear focus on the victim's perspective and on redress for crime victims, not least when the most vulnerable in society are affected by violent crimes.

These children and women are subjected to violence in the place that should be the safest of all. The home, which should be a safe place, has instead developed into a crime scene. The lump in the stomach grows when the children and women put the key in the door to the home. The anxiety and fear exist regarding how the evening and night will be. The children hide when they hear the violence. The children try to save their mother. It is a reality for 200,000 children who grow up with a father who beats their mother or with a brother who assaults his sister.

Every three weeks, a woman is murdered by a man. Violence against children and women is just as serious as gang crime and should receive at least as much attention from the police and legislators. We know that children and young people who grow up in violent environments run enormous risks, not least that they themselves are subjected to violence and experience vulnerability.

Men's violence against women, young boys' violence against young girls, honor-related violence and oppression, and violence against children is a major societal problem that violates and restricts children's and women's fundamental freedoms and rights. Thousands of girls and women are subjected every year to harassment, violence, and sexual crimes. The violence causes great suffering and leads to lifelong consequences. For decades, the deadly violence against women and the traumatic situation that follows for the child who loses their mother has been neglected.

No children, no girls and no women shall be forced to adapt their lives to violent or controlling boys and men. Therefore, the government has already taken several initiatives to counteract men's violence against women and honor-related violence and oppression. In cases of suspected aggravated violation of a woman's integrity, mandatory detention shall occur, and the penalties shall be significantly toughened. Furthermore, restraining orders shall be able to cover larger geographical areas. And electronic surveillance shall be used more often. It is the perpetrator's freedom that shall be restricted, not the crime victims'. Children and women exposed to violence shall not be forced to live hidden and forgotten in Sweden.

The Government will develop a new national strategy to prevent and combat men's violence against women and honor-related violence and oppression. In the development, the Government will, of course, involve relevant authorities, civil society organizations, and academia.

During the previous parliamentary term, we succeeded in ensuring that a national strategy against violence against children would be developed. Now the investigation is complete and out for consultation. I was responsible as an investigator for developing the previous national strategy. Even in that situation, I initially felt it was strange that we in Sweden had not developed a national strategy against violence against children. Vulnerability also risks much later in life.

One thing was quite upsetting. When we were given the assignment to develop a national strategy, it was called the National strategy against men's violence against women and honor-related violence and oppression. It is interesting that the government then chose to cut half of the heading. It says something about the interest that existed for something that many are subjected to.

In the investigation, we also had clear proposals that young men's violence against young girls must constitute a separate target area. That too disappeared and was blurred out.

I really look forward to a new strategy being developed and for it to be clear that we ensure we start early and have a special focus on the vulnerable children. The children's rights perspective shall be strengthened, and the parents' rights shall be challenged.

The child peace crime was introduced during the previous parliamentary term. But I am extremely disappointed that I did not succeed in influencing the previous government to dare to be clear that a father who is convicted of murder of the child's mother has forfeited his right to be a guardian - period. It is something that I will, of course, continue to fight for. I also see that there is support for those issues, both from Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer and Social Minister Camilla Waltersson Grönvall. It feels safe and good. It feels like we can make a difference together.

It is also completely insane that children are the only crime victims who can be forced by a court to live with their perpetrator. Forced contact for children with a violent parent must cease. That is also a struggle that we pursued during the last parliamentary term. There I also see that things are happening and that the possibilities exist.

In the budget bill, the government proposes that the work against honor-related violence and oppression shall be strengthened by making the preventive work permanent with 50 million kronor per year.

Honor-related violence and oppression is a serious problem in our country. To solve it, we must understand the context in which the violence and oppression occur. We must understand how the violence affects the individual and understand that sons are already forced in preschool to control and limit their sisters. It is only when we understand the reality of those affected that we can grasp what they actually need to be protected from.

Our laws and our view on the individual freedoms of children, women, and LGBTQI people differ significantly from those in the countries from which we have had a large influx of migrants. Nevertheless, we are clear that children, women, and LGBTQI people have individual freedoms and rights. But as soon as we have met resistance, this society has wavered and backed down. Therefore, it feels extremely important that we now together try to stand our ground and truly tackle those issues fully.

Despite the fact that we know that oppression begins early in a child's life, despite the fact that we know the reality that many parents come from and the difficulties it can entail to be a parent in a completely new country, there is a lack of conversation about the demands and expectations on a parent here. These are conversations that must be had over and over again to create conditions for children and young people to have access to a life without demands of innocence, control, threats, violence, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation.

Children and young people should not have to fear being deported from Sweden as a punishment for wanting to enjoy their basic freedoms and rights. They should not have to fear being sent to the country that the family fled from. Politicians have known, and Swedish authorities know. Still, chairs remain empty in the classrooms. And the children suffer in their loneliness and in enormous vulnerability.

Therefore, it is important that we now expand the possibilities to issue travel bans in more cases, just as the conversion therapy that hbtqi persons are subjected to shall become a clear crime.

I support the committee's proposal in the report and move for the motions to be rejected.

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Gudrun Nordborg (V)

Mr. Speaker! Vänsterpartiet stands behind all of our eleven reservations. But I choose to highlight specifically two of them. It is number 4 regarding a women's peace commission and number 42 regarding a crime victim ombudsman.

These two proposals are prioritized because they, if completed, could be expected to bring about substantial improvements for all the women and children who are subjected to men's violence in various forms, including honor-related violence. They should also be able to protect and help the entire group of crime victims.

I choose to highlight a women's peace commission based on the experiences from the great successes of the commission that was appointed as early as 1993 to handle issues of men's violence against women and, of course, to propose measures to counteract it. It was Sweden's very first investigation that was to work from a women's perspective. It did this with a basis in research and took the name the Violence Against Women Commission. Then the foundation was laid for legal policy milestones and a paradigm shift regarding the understanding of gender-based violence. This also aroused great international interest.

I choose to mention this, which may feel like history, because it was groundbreaking and because since then there has been a backlash where we have lost much of the competence that the commission delivered and also practices that it advocated.

Examples of what the commission achieved were the introduction of the crimes of breach of peace as well as insights into what repeated threats and violence entail, especially in close relationships, and about the enormous vulnerability of women and children to attacks also outside the home - both violence, sexual violence and psychological abuse.

Among the reforms was also to change the language. We might be shocked today when we look back and see that it was described as if it only concerned him and him. The investigation wanted to include both she and her, that is to say that both genders should be mentioned and made visible in the law. I remember when I first read this and almost shuddered that we had not been included earlier. A male, high-profile professor pointed out that everyone should know that "han" is a gender-neutral pronoun.

It may sound like a game today, but it was also a way to mark the strong element of male norms that the legislation carried then and which are still very dominant today. We still have much to grapple with in the legislation and even more in the application because of this.

In the proposition, the government pointed out that insights must increase regarding male culture's connections to violence against women. They also left additional proposals that were implemented, some directly, others after a long time. The crime of rape of a child took, for example, ten years to be included in our legal text, so that children under 15 could be protected in their sexual identity. Regardless of whether violence occurred or not, it would be classified as rape.

Further reforms have not yet been implemented, including those concerning destructive, controlling behaviors and hate crimes that also include women.

I mention this because the commission was groundbreaking, and we could break further ground if we repeat and evaluate what the commission entailed, what we can contribute based on the research that exists now, and how we can complete the courage that the investigation showed by taking the right to describe children's vulnerability in families where the father uses violence against the mother.

I want to link to something that we should be more attentive to even going forward, namely that one can learn that violence is a means of power. It is particularly the sons who internalize this in a gender-bound way and risk exposing their future partners to violence. We know that this is increasing today in young relationships, even in very young relationships. We can see that upbringing in violence as power can go straight in and activate what is happening in the criminal gangs today.

Other important points were, of course, the cooperation between different authorities, the importance of violence competence to be able to carry out legally secure investigations with respect for both the victim and the perpetrator, as well as new forms of evidence. He advocated for video recording of the initial interrogations in the home, which has worked hit and miss. Only in 2020 did the Swedish Police Authority point out that it is a successful method of evidence. This must be revisited.

Something else I also want to argue for is the establishment of a victim's ombudsman. The Victim Authority was established in 1995, and it has grown and is immensely important in various ways as a knowledge authority in the field of crime victims. It naturally works to promote crime victims' rights and highlight needs and interests. This happens in different ways, partly through direct contacts with crime victims, and partly through the administration of the Victim Fund, i.e., the perpetrator money that is paid into the fund if one has committed more serious crimes.

Millions and millions have been able to support important research in the field of crime victims, where we have been able to see progress in Sweden thanks to this. Through the perpetrator funds, support can also be given to many non-profit organizations and public activities that want to try to develop their crime victim work.

Despite the fact that the authority has existed for a long time, we have no overview of what actually constitutes a crime victim's rights. The Safety Board notes that it is difficult to obtain an overall picture of this. Therefore, what has already occurred is important – that the Crime Victim Authority's current mandate is strengthened and clarified.

What could become very effective is to link a victim's ombudsman to the Crime Victim Authority's already existing activities. There, one could collect impressions, coordinate, and have advisory activities. I believe that this would be an important and urgent step forward for crime victims.

I want to mention another perspective, an opportunity and a tool that we could use when the crimes are not so serious but have been committed by young people, namely mediation. This was introduced in 2008 through legislation, and every municipality has an obligation to have such an activity. Initially, Brå, the Crime Prevention Council, was responsible for introducing and developing mediation activities, and it grew across the country.

I had the privilege of participating in a number of such trainings and also meeting perpetrators and crime victims who had been brought together and had agreed to set aside the anxiety and worry they had felt about meeting each other. They could reach agreements on how they should act when they, for example, saw each other in school or, if it was a young and an older person, in the public environment, whether they should greet each other or if it was better to refrain, and whether they should reach other agreements on restitution.

It is important to highlight this in general terms and give Brå a new mandate to monitor the mediation activities and develop them.

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Ulrika Liljeberg (C)

Mr. Speaker! There are many parties and actors in a criminal case. Many are important, but the most central are those who have been affected by the crime and those who have committed the crimes.

As I have said before here in this rostrum, and will probably say again, I will always speak warmly in favor of crime prevention work, as the biggest winner of crime prevention work will always be the one who avoids being subjected to a crime that could have been prevented and averted.

But with that said, it is important that those who have been subjected to crimes are taken most seriously. We know that increased insight and knowledge about how persons who have been subjected to crimes act and react is important. Continuous education and high-quality knowledge in all links of the justice chain is of great importance. Knowledge about sexual crimes, about violence in close relationships, about honor cultures is particularly important. But it is also important with methods of work and how we organize ourselves in, for example, children's houses, where the child who is subjected to crime is in focus and where we from the public sector adapt ourselves.

Another focus for crime victims is how an ankle bracelet can be used not only as a correctional measure but also as a security measure for crime victims and relatives of crime victims if the ankle bracelet can be used as a tool to prohibit a perpetrator from staying in certain geographical areas and in connection with restraining orders.

Many crime victims report that they have received justice through a conviction and through awarded damages. But then they tell of the difficulties in obtaining the damages and that it is like being back at square one. We think it is unsatisfactory that crime victims themselves should have to demand the damages from the perpetrator. We believe that this system should be reviewed and that the state should take greater responsibility for the collection process. This has previously been announced by the Riksdag, but no measures have been taken yet, and we will continue to push for this for the sake of the crime victims.

I would like to take this opportunity to agree with what the representative for the Christian Democrats has said earlier in the debate regarding the fact that the clearance rate of crimes must increase. I appreciate that this is being highlighted, because it does not matter how harsh the sentences we decide upon if the crimes are not investigated and not prosecuted. It is important that this happens throughout the country with a large police presence, but also in "cyberspace" with the ever-increasing amount of crimes committed there, including fraud. Investigation and prosecution are incredibly important.

Mr. Speaker! We from the Center Party have in other debates highlighted the protection of emergency services personnel, of people within schools, healthcare, and elderly care, as well as other public officials. I would like to mention here today two other groups who all too often are subjected to threats, hate, and violence in their respective roles. They are subjected to it in their roles as important parts of our open, liberal, and democratic society.

One group is elected politicians, most of whom are amateur politicians in the country's many municipalities and regions, and where we see that women are particularly vulnerable. The other group is journalists and representatives of the media. They are usually mentioned as the third and so important state power. A free press is crucial for us in Centerpartiet for a country's democracy - to scrutinize us in power, inform the citizens, and highlight societal problems. But threats against journalists are something that is increasing, and it is a threat to both free speech and democracy in a broader sense and can never be accepted. The government therefore needs to give its support with greater force for work to protect both the elected and its scrutinizers.

I support all of the Centerpartiet's reservations, but I wish to move for approval only of reservation 55, which concerns the state's increased responsibility for the collection of damages to crime victims.

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Malte Roos (MP)

Mr. Speaker! Today we debate here in the chamber of the Riksdag the around 150 motions that were submitted during the general motion period concerning the area of violent crime and crime victims. These are 150 proposals spread across all of the Riksdag's parties with the goal of strengthening the protection for crime victims and countering, among other things, sexual crimes, honor-related violence and oppression, violence in close relationships, and online hate. Despite the fact that Sweden in many ways is a pioneering country in this area, the content of the motions clearly shows that more can and must be done to make Sweden safer and fairer for all our inhabitants.

Miljöpartiet has long been pioneers in legislation to counter violent crime and strengthen protection for crime victims. We were the first party to advocate for consent legislation, a law that was implemented during the first red-green government in 2018. With Miljöpartiet in government, a long series of increased penalties for rape, gang rape, honor crimes, and more were introduced, and we launched a comprehensive package of measures against men's violence against women. In our motions, we in Miljöpartiet now propose several additional measures, and I want to briefly account for some of them.

Mr. Speaker! As larger and larger parts of our lives are moved onto the internet, more and more crimes are also occurring online. This affects people of all ages, but it is particularly relevant the younger we look. More and more people, including a large proportion of our middle and high school children, are exposed to hate and threats online, and sexual abuse and violations have become easier to commit and spread with the help of the internet. Sugar dating sites, escort sites, and similar pages simultaneously facilitate sexual crimes without themselves taking any responsibility for the problems or running any risks of consequences themselves. This is totally unacceptable.

Sweden must seriously tackle crimes online. Miljöpartiet wants to see legislative changes to make it easier to investigate and prosecute hate and threats on the internet, and the criminal legislation must be reviewed to include sexual violations and abuses on the internet to a greater extent. It is also important to investigate whether sugar dating sites and similar pages should be able to be subjects of criminal investigations for pimping and whether the requirement for double criminality for pimping should be able to be removed, so that the site owners can be held accountable and digital brothels can be shut down. Sexual abuses and violations online must be equated with abuses offline.

Mr. Speaker! Someone who is subjected to a crime should be able to be sure that they will receive exactly the support they need. But to be entitled to support as a crime victim, one must first be recognized as a crime victim. That is not the case today for many of those who are subjected to sexual crimes in Sweden. One such group is children who are subjected to child pornography crimes.

The offense designation child pornography crime is in itself problematic and should be renamed to indicate what it actually is, namely documented sexual abuse against children. The children who are subjected to these documented sexual abuses are not regarded as crime victims today, as the crime is placed under crimes against public order. Instead, the state is counted as the crime victim, even though it is the child who will live with the consequences of the crime for a long time. Miljöpartiet believes that the legislation must focus on children's right to protection and recognize the abused children as crime victims.

Another group that is not recognized as victims of crime today are those who are subjected to sex buying or commercial sexual exploitation. Just as when it concerns children who have been subjected to documented sexual abuse, the victim of crime when it concerns sex buying or commercial sexual exploitation is considered to be the state, not the person subjected to it. This is an absurd arrangement. Miljöpartiets view is that it should not be possible to buy consent to sex and that sex buying and commercial sexual exploitation should be seen as crimes against people and not against the state.

Finally, I want to highlight the need for educational initiatives within the areas we are discussing today for employees within the justice system. The courts decide important issues, for example, the right to custody and visitation, and must have a good understanding of how families are affected by violence and the consequences of children being forced to spend time with a parent who subjected the mother and/or the child to violence.

Unfortunately, a mapping conducted by the Gender Equality Authority shows that a majority of judges appear to lack basic knowledge regarding men's violence against women, domestic violence, and violence against children, what the consequences of exposure to violence entail, and what consequences decisions regarding custody, housing, or visitation can have. It has occurred that courts and other authorities have disclosed women's protected personal data, which is unacceptable and requires knowledge-enhancing measures.

The Swedish Courts Administration should therefore, in cooperation with the Gender Equality Authority and the National Centre for Women's Peace, develop and implement educational initiatives for the judges. There is also a great need for increased access to specific educational initiatives and competence-enhancing initiatives regarding psychological violence, for crime victims to receive the support they need and perpetrators to receive the penalty they must have according to law, the justice system must have sufficient knowledge about the crimes committed and the consequences they have for the victims.

Mr. Speaker! The struggle for a safe, equal and just society for all requires that we politicians are always ready to take the next step. I stand behind all of the Miljöpartiet's proposals in this area, but for the sake of time, I move for approval only of reservation 50 regarding victim status for children exploited in child pornography and reservation 9 regarding educational measures on violence in close relationships and more.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 11.)

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