Crime rates have grown in Italy to such an extent that around seven in ten women in the country now report that they are afraid to walk outside alone at night.
A survey of 1,000 Italian adults from Univ-Censis has found that 67.3 per cent of women feel afraid while walking home at night, broadcaster RAI reports.
There is a general sense among Italians that their country has become more dangerous over the past five years, with 75.8 per cent overall agreeing with the statement, rising to 81.8 per cent among women. Nearly four in ten people reported that they have given up on going out at night at all for fear of being victimised by criminals.
Last year, there were 2,388,716 crimes reported throughout Italy, an increase of 2 per cent over 2023 and a 3.8 per cent jump from 2019.
Crimes specifically targeting women have risen by even more, particularly sexual assaults, which have risen by 34.9 per cent, with 6,587 incidents being reported last year alone.
The survey also found that a quarter of women (25.6 per cent) said that they had been subjected to sexual harassment, while 23.1 per cent said that they had been mugged or pickpocketed and 29.5 per cent said that they had experienced strangers following them.
The rise in sexual crimes has been linked by some to the vast waves of illegal migrants entering the country. Indeed, in 2023, 43 per cent of all sexual assaults were committed by foreigners, despite only making up around 8 per cent of the population.
Commenting last year on the connection between mass migration and sex crimes, anti-mass migration Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said: “Now I will be defined racist, but there is one higher incidence, unfortunately in cases of sexual violence, by people immigrate, especially illegally, because when you have nothing there is a degeneration that can lead to everywhere.”
RAI reported that Milan had the highest crime rate in 2024, with 69.7 crimes committed per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Florence at 65.3 and Rome at 64.1.
In January, police arrested dozens of men of “North African” extraction in Milan after a group of young female tourists were subjected to gang sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve. According to authorities, the attacks were believed to be part of an “Islamic ritual” known as taharrush gamea, or the “collective sexual harassment in crowds” that generally target “insolent women, guilty of showing up in public”.
Disproportionate sex crime rates for migrants have also been found in other European countries, including in the United Kingdom. According to a report last month based on police data in England and Wales, 8,500 foreigners were arrested in the previous year on suspicion of rape or other sex crimes. This accounted for one in five sex crime assaults in the country, despite migrants only accounting for around 16.8 per cent of the population.
According to the report, some migrant groups were far more likely than others to be arrested on suspicion of sex crimes, with people from Sudan being arrested at 20 times the rate of British citizens. They were followed by migrants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, and Iraq. Conversely, migrants from countries like Canada and Germany had a lower rate than their British counterparts, leading to calls that the government limit immigration from countries with a higher propensity for violence and criminality.
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