Apparently, the Don’t-Grope-Me bracelets didn’t work. Police in Sweden are investigating reports that dozens of young women and girls, some of them as young as 12, were sexually assaulted at separate music festivals over the weekend.
Five rapes and a number of sexual assaults were reported at the Bråvalla festival in Norrkoping over the weekend, and dozens of incidents of groping were reported to police at the Putte i Parken festival in Karlstad. Witnesses at the Putte i Parken festival reported seeing a gang of “foreign young men” groping the breasts and genitals of females in the audience.
Members of the award-winning British band Mumford & Sons, which played the Bråvalla event, said Tuesday that they would not return to the venue until police and organizers put forth concrete plans to prevent such incidents in the future.
“We’re appalled to hear what happened at the Bråvalla Festival last weekend,” the group posted on its Facebook page. “Festivals are a celebration of music and people, a place to let go and feel safe doing so. We’re gutted by these hideous reports.”
“We won’t play at this festival again until we’ve had assurances from the police and organizers that they’re doing something to combat what appears to be a disgustingly high rate of reported sexual violence,” the band said.
In describing the perpetrators, Swedish police said they were from “diverse backgrounds” with the common denominator that they were all “young men.” Victims interviewed by Swedish newspapers, however, described many of the assailants as “foreign youths.”
Police in Sweden came under fire earlier this year when a liberal newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, reported that officials knew such groping and sexual harassment of young girls by refugee youths had been occurring at festivals for at least two years running but failed to notify the public to avoid stoking anti-immigrant sentiment. Sweden has taken in more migrants per capita than any other country in Europe.
Earlier this year, police in Sweden began distributing colored bracelets that read “Don’t Grope” as a means of engaging young people on the subject of unwanted sexual advances ahead of the summer festival season. “No one should accept sexual molestation,” said national police chief Dan Eliasson. “So do not grope. And file a police report if you have been a victim.”
