Why Are Non-Violent Rapes Judged More Harshly?

Is it really so much more serious not to ensure consent before sex than to strangle the woman you live with until she thinks she's going to die? As it stands today: yes.

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

Every woman has at some point believed he would kill her. That now it's over. That now she will never see her children again.

Almost every time, Markus, whose real name is different, gets away with probation. He gets chance after chance. In the verdicts, it is emphasized 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 any crime when he met a girl at a bar. They made out, and after a while, he inserted one or two fingers into her. He says he first asked if it was okay and that she said yes. She says she doesn't remember any question, that she just froze. The incident was over in a few minutes. The district court sentenced Sebastian to three years in prison for rape.

Fast forward to 2025 when the repeat offender Markus is convicted of aggravated violation of a woman's integrity, unlawful threats, harassment, and child abuse – and gets away with probation and treatment. If the district court had instead chosen prison, the sentence would still not have reached even half of what Sebastian received.

Why is it considered so much less serious to repeatedly threaten women and children with death and to abuse their wives and girlfriends until they think they will die, than to violate someone's sexual integrity on a single occasion?

When I reviewed the effects of the consent law last year, I was struck by how seriously lawmakers view sexual crimes. Now, as I investigate repeated cases of violations of women's integrity, I am struck by the opposite.

In 2022, the minimum sentence for both rape and violation of a woman's integrity was increased.

To be convicted of rape, no violence or threats are required. Just that you haven't checked thoroughly enough if the other person was really on board with every step of the sexual act. For a man to be convicted of aggravated violation of a woman's integrity, it requires that he has repeatedly and over time committed crimes 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 the minimum sentence for rape was raised to three years, the minimum sentence for aggravated violation of a woman's integrity was raised to one year. Repeatedly hitting, threatening, and violating a woman in her own home thus gives a third of the sentence that non-violent rape gives.

Despite the obviously higher risk of recidivism when it comes to violation of a woman's integrity, and despite the women feeling death anxiety and suffering 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?