There were 36 sexual assaults in Oulu in 2006. This reflects both a national and small local rise in such crimes according to police figures.

Most recently, an 18 year-old woman was raped in Tuira the Saturday before last at 4.30 in the morning. The woman was returning from the city centre when a man walked past her, turned around, threatened her with a knife and raped her. Police are looking for a man who is one hundred and eighty centimetres (5`9) tall with short, dark hair. The accused was wearing a hooded top at the time of the incident. 

According to the police, interviewed in The Kaleva, there is no reason to connect this rape with the gang rape that occurred in Otto Karhi Park before Christmas. These are being treated as entirely separate incidents and the police are looking for different people.

Police information has revealed that were thirty-six sexual assaults in Oulu last year. Of these, eleven were rapes or attempted rapes. This is nowhere near as many sexual assaults as were committed by Sami Greus, the Oulu martial arts instructor who was convicted last year. In 2005, police recorded that there were 29 sexual assaults of which nine were rapes or attempted rapes.

In the view of the police spokesman, the increase between 2005 and 2006 is not significant. However, as two cases have occurred – both with considerable publicity – in the space of a month the police have noted that it has obviously caused concern.

The number of rapes appear to have risen significantly in Finland in the last decade. In the 1990s there were around four hundred rapes a year but so far this decade there have been more than five hundred and fifty per year. However, one explanation for this rise is that the law on the issue was changed in 1999.

The police emphasised, however, that the risk of being a victim of a sexual assault in Finland is extremely low despite the recent incidents that have gained publicity.

According to statistics extrapolated from the statistics website ‘Nationmaster’, a person is relatively unlikely to be raped in Finland but it is certainly not the safest country in Europe with regard to sexual assault. In Finland, there are about 11.5 rapes a year per 100,000 people. In South Africa there are 117, in the USA there are 29, in the UK there are 15, in Norway there are 13 and in Germany and Denmark there are nine. However, statistics, definitions and levels of reporting vary between different countries.   

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