The surge of immigration into Europe in 2015 led to a significant increase in sexual violence

Prey: Immigration, Islam & the Erosion of Women’s Rights

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Harper, 322 pages, $28.99

See ‘Prey’ Review: A Forbidden Conversation by Tunku Varadarajan. Excerpts:

"Almost three million people have arrived illegally in Europe since 2009, close to two million in 2015 alone. Two-thirds are male, and 80% of asylum applicants are under the age of 35. “The intensification of the Syrian civil war,” Ms. Hirsi Ali writes, “was the largest proximate cause for the migrant influx.” There is no shortage of data on Europe’s sexual violence in her book. Some examples: There was a 17% increase in rapes in France from 2017 to 2018; in Germany, the number of victims of rape and “sexual coercion” rose by 41% in 2017; and in Sweden, there was a 12% increase in reported sex offenses in 2016—astonishing ratios that may have abated recently, she explains, only due to restrictions resulting from Covid-19."

"the surge of immigration into Europe” in 2015 led to “a significant increase in sexual violence in the countries that accommodated the largest numbers of migrants.” The migrants are from societies marked by patriarchy and polygamy, where women are “commodities.” These men, she explains, “see no reason to alter their views simply because they now live in western Europe.”"

"The worst single incident of sexual assault by migrants occurred in Cologne on Dec. 31, 2015—New Year’s Eve—when hundreds of men (mostly newly arrived asylum-seekers of Arab and North African origin) “mobbed together to entrap women” in the area between the city’s central railway station and its storied cathedral. In the following months, 661 women came forward to report themselves as victims of sexual attacks that night. The official response was one of paralysis, as police and prosecutors struggled with the fear of being seen as racist. By the spring of 2019, a mere 52 of the alleged assailants had been indicted, of whom only three were convicted of sex offenses."

"The kid-gloved German response to violent migrants is mirrored in France and Sweden."

"Officials are loath to tabulate—let alone disclose—data on asylum-seekers who attack women, so as not to inflame public opinion and bolster far-right parties. The only “acceptable” purpose for collecting data on ethnicity is “to log incidents of discrimination against minorities.” Courts seek out “cultural defenses” that would enable lenient sentences, including a case in which a Turkish migrant, who had raped a German woman for four hours, was judged not to have understood Western notions of consent and was acquitted. European feminists, Ms. Hirsi Ali says, are obsessed with attacking “the white man” and excuse immigrant men of crimes against women because they believe the perpetrators to be “victims of racism and colonialism.”"