Significantly more sexual assaults are committed in Switzerland on Saturday or Sundays than on weekdays, according to a study of victims treated in the emergency departments of the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne.
During the four-year study period between 2018 and 2021, 962 sexual assault reports were made at the two hospitals, according to a joint statement issued by the hospitals on Wednesday; 740 of the cases were included in the analysis. The median age of the victims was 24.
According to the report, 45% of all reported assaults took place on a Saturday or Sunday. There were also more assaults in the summer, when the number of reported assaults was about one-and-a-half times higher than in winter.
Almost six out of ten victims said they knew their attacker. Just as many assaults took place in the victims’ own homes. Around one in four could not remember what kind of penetration they had been subjected to.