Mass sexual assault is the collective sexual assault of women, men and sometimes children, in public by groups. Typically acting under the protective cover of Mass gathering, victims have reported being Groping, stripped, beaten, bitten, penetrated and .
Egypt
In Egypt, several mass sexual assaults have received wide international coverage.
[ transcript at CBS.] In
Arabic, the term "mass sexual assaults" translates as تحرش جماعي (), often incorrectly transliterated in the media
[Shams, Alex (21 January 2016). "Neither Taharrush Gamea Nor Sexism Are Arab 'Cultural Practices'" , Huffington Post.] as "" following a German police report into the 2015/2016 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany.
[ "Bericht des Ministeriums für Inneres und Kommunales über die Übergriffe am Hauptbahnhof Köln in der Silvesternacht" , Ministerium für Inneres und Kommunales des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 10 January 2016, pp. 1–15.]
Germany
During New Year's Eve celebrations 2015/2016, incidents of mass sexual assault and numerous
occurred in
Germany, mainly in
Cologne city center and numerous other cities. Over 1,200 women were reportedly sexually assaulted, in large part by men of
North African origin.
India
Several cases of mass sexual assault have been reported in India and have received significant international coverage. During the 2002 riots in Gujarat, targeted violence against Muslim women and children documented by civil society groups reported "mass rapes, live burials and burnings, acid attacks, impaling, and other brutal forms of torture that was deeply gendered, and linked violence against women with violence on their children – both born and unborn".
Survivors reported "that sexual violence consisted of forced nudity, mass rapes, gang-rapes, mutilation, insertion of objects into bodies, cutting of breasts, slitting the stomach and reproductive organs, and carving of Hindu religious symbols on women's body parts.
[
] The Concerned Citizens' Tribunal, characterised the use of rape "as an instrument for the subjugation and humiliation of a community".
In July 2012, a teenage girl was sexually assaulted for up to 45 minutes by a large group of men outside a bar in Guwahati, Assam. No one intervened until the police arrived.[Helen Pidd, "Indian anger over media footage of girl being sexually assaulted" , The Guardian, 15 July 2012.]
In January 2018 an 8-year-old girl, Asifa Bano, was gang raped by six men and a juvenile in the Rasana village near Kathua in Indian-administered Kashmir. The forensic evidence revealed that Bano had been raped multiple times by different men, and that she had been strangled to death, as well as being hit in the head with a heavy stone[name=NYT>]
In July 2023 a video emerged of two Christian women in the Manipur state of India being forced to strip down naked and paraded through the streets by a large mob of men. The women were also sexually assaulted and slapped by the mob. The incident is said to have taken place in May of the same year however police only took action once the video went viral.
Italy
On 2 June 2022, at least 6 underaged girls were molested on a local train between Peschiera del Garda and
Milan by young men of North African origin
who had attended an illegal
rave party hours prior.
Authorities later identified about 30 suspects.
During the 2022 New Year's celebration in the central Duomo square in Milan, at least 9 women were allegedly molested in separate mass sexual assault incidents.[ Milano, circondata e minacciata dal branco a Capodanno in piazza Duomo: la polizia cerca gli aggressori della 19enne, Il Corriere della Sera] Two young German tourists reported being assaulted and groped for at least ten minutes by about two dozen men who "spoke Arabic". The girls lamented the indifference of the police, who reportedly failed to aid them even after hearing their cries for help. The two denounced the fact once they got back to their home city of Mannheim. On January 11 at least 18 suspects, all youngsters of North African origin, were identified and searched by Italian authorities, who were aided in their investigation by facial recognition software.
At the 2025 New Year's celebration in the central Duomo square in Milan several girls were molested by a crowd of 50 to 100 people. When they succeeded in reaching the police they didn't get any help.
Pakistan
British television presenter
Saira Khan said in 2016 that she had been sexually assaulted by a some men in a crowd in Pakistan in 2007 while filming a documentary for the BBC. She accused the BBC of having ignored the incident.
[ "Apprentice star claims she was sexually assaulted in Pakistan" , Express Tribune, 13 January 2016.]
Sweden
Female participants at
We Are Sthlm, a summer music festival for teenagers in Stockholm, reported in 2014 and 2015 that they had been surrounded and molested by groups of males, mostly teenage boys. Police were accused of having failed to publicize the attacks because the suspects were mostly from Afghanistan. The incidents came to light only after the 2016 New Year's Eve attacks in Germany when the Stockholm Police were accused of covering up the incidents, which they denied.
[
Bilefsky, Dan (11 January 2016). "Swedish Police, Accused of Cover-Up, Look Into Reports of Sex Assault at Festival" , The New York Times.
Orange, Richard (11 January 2016). "Police in Sweden accused of hushing up asylum seeker assaults at festival" , The Daily Telegraph.]
United States
In July 1999, Woodstock 1999 took place and police subsequently investigated four complaints of sexual assault and rape, including digital rape, that allegedly occurred. At least one eyewitness, who was working as a volunteer at the event, reported to
The Washington Post that he had seen a woman who was
crowd surfing pulled down into the
mosh pit and raped by five men.
[Alona Wartofsky, "Police Investigate Reports of Rapes at Woodstock" , The Washington Post, 29 July 1999.]
On 11 June 2000 at least 44 women reported being sexually assaulted and robbed by a group of 60 men during the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York. The police were heavily criticized for their handling of the attacks.[Michael Ellison, "NY police 'ignored' park sex attacks" , The Guardian, 17 June 2000.]
In February 2001, witnesses saw groups of men grope women, tearing off their clothes and apparently digitally penetrating them during the Mardi Gras celebrations in Seattle, Washington.[
]
See also
Bibliography
-
Rape Narratives in Motion. Germany, Springer International Publishing, 2019. Editors: Gabriella Nilsson, Lena Karlsson, Monika Edgren, Ulrika Andersson
