Abrupt: Every third elected representative was threatened during the election year

More and more politicians are exposed to threats and harassment. A total of 30 percent of politicians stated that they were exposed during the 2018 election year. This is a two percent increase from the 2014 election year. The perpetrator is usually perceived to be a rape victim or annoyed citizen.

Almost one-fourth state that the vulnerability or concern about being exposed affects them in their mission. Here you can see gender differences, 48 ​​percent of the vulnerable women feel that the threats affect them, of which 38 percent of the vulnerable men felt that they were affected. The most common consequence was that they avoided engaging or commenting on a specific issue.

The survey, which is now being conducted for the fifth time, has a new question this year. It concerns whether there has been any oral, written or physical assault of a sexual nature. There, 14 percent of women report being exposed, as opposed to seven percent of men.

Younger elected representatives also state that they are exposed more often than the elderly. The survey also shows that few (19 percent) of the incidents are reported to the police. The reason why so few police reports are usually that they feel that the report still does not lead to anything.