Newly released crime data from Düsseldorf’s Ministry of the Interior has revealed that nearly half of all gang-rape suspects in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia are foreigners.
The figures, released following an inquiry from the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) parliamentary group in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament, showed that 108 of the 236 individuals suspected of having been involved with group rape offenses last year were not German citizens, Junge Freiheit reports.
So, despite making up just 14.8 percent of North Rhine-Westphalia’s population of nearly 18 million people, foreigners were shockingly over-represented in 45.76 percent of gang rape cases within the federal state.
Crime statistics also indicated that of the total number of gang rape suspects last year, 39 were listed as ‘immigrants’, a catchall term that refers to non-EU citizens either residing in Germany illegally or who have residence status as asylum seekers. The legal term ‘group rape, on the other hand, includes any rape or sexual assault that’s carried out collectively.
In 2020, authorities in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia recorded a total of 115 instances of group rape, while so far this year, numbers are up slightly, with 66 instances of group rape having already been recorded in the first half of the year, according to the Düsseldorf’s Ministry of the Interior.
In those 66 instances of group rape, 142 suspects were involved, 55 of whom do not hold German passports (38.73 percent). Of those 55 gang-rape suspects without German passports, 15 belong to the group defined as ‘immigrants’.
The alarming statewide data comes roughly a month after Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) released figures which revealed that an average of two women or girls are gang-raped throughout Germany every single day, with foreigners comprising around half of the suspects, despite only making up just 13.7 percent of the population.
The BKA’s group rape figures from the previous three years display an upward trend, with 704 instances happening last year, compared to 710 in 2019, and 649 in 2018.
Responding to the figures, Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Martin Reichardt has blamed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU for failing to protect the country’s vulnerable women and girls, saying: “This is Germany after 16 years of Christian Democratic Union rule. The real problems, especially those of imported crime, are played down and whoever names them is defamed.”
Germany has undergone dramatic demographic change since Merkel opened the country’s doors to millions of migrants in 2015, 2016, and beyond. The latest figures from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office have shown that some 21.1 million people – 26 percent of the country’s total population – have migrant backgrounds. By the year 2040, the proportion of people living in Germany with foreign backgrounds is projected to rise to one-third of the total population, while cities like Frankfurt may see 70 percent of their populations comprised of individuals with migrant backgrounds.
