After a gang rape in Rissne in Stockholm, it has been a discussion and a debate about if it is going to be possible for young girls to learn self-defence in school. Since 1990 the rape reports has almost redoubled, but the convictions have not increased at the same rate. If we decide to teach these students to defend themselves, would it lower the rapes in the future? Who knows?

The most known rape recently, is the one in Rissne a couple of years ago. A 14 year old girl was raped by seven boys in a multi-store car park. After that the discussion started among politicians and in the society how. A girl who has tried these self-defence courses says, "the best thing about them is that you learn to take space, that it is better to say no and show that this is my line and you can’t cross it".

Last year 2024 cases were reported but only 121 were convictions. When 325 convictions where examine the rape was denied in slightly more than the half. The Karolinska hospital and the south hospital, in Stockholm, have made a study that shows that every sixth who searched emergency care for rape, had been subjected to gang rape.

Lisa Nilson educates girls in self-defence and has also taken part to drive the self-defend suggestion through. She thinks it is very important that girls should be offerd the opportunity to defend themselves. And she thinks that the school is a good place to do that. It is a good start to lower the number of rapes. "Feministic self-defence is most about teaching girls not to get in dangerous situations and to teach them to have so much self-confidence that they dare to say no. That they actually think; you don’t call me a bitch again, and that they think; I’m not supposed to be scared when I go home, I’m not supposed to have pepper-spray where ever I go", says Lisa.

There are also many people who don’t think we should teach self-defence in school, one of them is Jan Björklund a leading school politician in Stockholm. He says that what’s going to happen is that we send out signals that it is the girls who have to change their behaviour, and that the girls will feel like "I have to go to this course or else I’m will be raped". Every time a boy calls a girl in his class or his female teacher a bitch, the adult-world most react much stronger. The thought of teaching violence in school is wrong though, says Jan.

A girl who has trained Ju-jutsu for five years says that there is too much violence in feministic self-defence. That they only mark their techniques and never practise them in realistic situations, and if something happens the defence technique could fail.

What do you think about this? How is it with the rapes where you live? Would you like to learn self-defence in school.

© 2001 Freeway
Writers: Therés Svensson (theres_smile@hotmail.com)
HTML by: Martin Jonsson (te03-50@park.se).