iStock Forum Sweden plays politics with rape A ‘new’ clinic for men who’ve been raped is not all that it seems.

STOCKHOLM — The Södersjukhuset hospital in south Stockholm, which looks like a stately cruise ship that’s run aground, has opened a clinic for men who have been raped and sexually assaulted: the first of its kind in the world, according to large amounts of publicity surrounding the launch.

Marie Ljungberg-Schott, a Moderate party politician for Stockholm County, explained that “the opening of this clinic marks an important shift in the way that the care system views victims of rape and sexual assaults. The fact that men and transsexual men now have a place to turn to is a very important step in making the health care system open to all people, regardless of gender.”

But here’s the thing. The clinic at Södersjukhuset is neither new nor specifically for men. Nor, slightly shockingly, is it the first of its kind in the world, as claimed by Swedish politicians on the BBC’s website, among many, many other outlets. So what’s with all the self-congratulatory — and patently misleading — fanfare?

* * *

In truth, the clinic was a pre-existing emergency and forensic facility catering to “women who have been subjected to acute sexual assault” according to the hospital’s website, which had not been updated at the time of writing. The claim, widely repeated by the city’s politicians for the global media, that it is the world’s first male rape clinic is just plain wrong.

“To say that we’re the first clinic in the world to provide this kind of care [for men] is incorrect,” admitted Karl Norwald, a sexologist at the Södersjukhuset unit after it reopened in its new guise. “I know there are clinics in Denmark and Norway already, so I believe there has been a misunderstanding of some kind along the way.”

So the question arises: Why would politicians play fast and loose with the truth around such a painful subject? Who could possibly be gauche enough to see the opening of a clinic for rape victims as a “sexy” way to get some publicity?

Sweden’s efforts to destigmatize rape victims have already led it down some unfamiliar paths. For instance, it records its statistics by the individual incident, so that if a woman is raped by her partner every night for a week it will be recorded as seven rapes rather than one, as it would be elsewhere. This has led to the country being repeatedly — and wrongly — referred to in the international media as the “rape capital of the world.”

And yet in the headlong political rush to be associated with the undeniably fascinating idea of a male rape clinic, something quite important appears to have been forgotten.

“We were not consulted,” said Wiveca Holst, a board member of Roks, Sweden’s national association of women’s shelters. “I don’t know who was consulted or even if a consultation happened. But we should have been asked, as an organization that deals as a matter of course with victims of sexual violence. We would have said that we believe they should have kept the clinic ‘women-only,’ and opened a new one for men if it were needed. Now, recently raped women will be sharing a space with men. This was an excellent facility but opening it to men is insensitive and a backwards step.”

There were 370 reported cases of male rape in Sweden last year from a total of 6,700, making men the victims of around 5.5 percent of reported rapes.

“Obviously everyone who has been raped needs care and support,” Holst continued. “But I’m not sure that the publicity around this clinic — where 95 percent of the patients will continue to be women — will benefit most rape victims in the long run. Making male rape more visible is one thing: Perhaps it is more interesting to talk about male rape for a change. But it is also a way of silencing women.”

In the final analysis, the repurposing of the clinic at Södersjukhuset has garnered massive publicity on an issue that, at first glance, seems like a no-brainer. Who could possibly be against helping the recently assaulted? The rape-clinic initiative has had cross-party support, with the Liberal party, the Christian Democrats and the Center party also throwing their collective weight behind it, making the clinic a product of Sweden’s center-right.

But the two contentions on which most of the publicity was based — that the clinic is the first in the world and that it was a new clinic — were both untrue. This was using the narrative of rape for political gain in a country where the perception of equality is frequently more important than reality.

Emma Hartley is a journalist and author of “Did David Hasselhoff End the Cold War?” — a book about the European Union.