Norway is offering classes to newly-arrived migrants telling them that “to force someone into sex is not permitted in Norway, even when you are married to that person.”
The five-hour programme involves group discussions on sex and rape and has been introduced amid concerns migrant men may be behind a rise in sex attacks in the Nordic country.
One migrant, Abdu Osman Kelifa, a Muslim from Eritrea, told the New York Times that he found it difficult to understand that a wife could accuse her husband of sexual assault.
“Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” he added, explaining that in his homeland “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished.”
Norway has different standards, however. “They can do any job from prime minister to truck driver and have the right to relax” in public without being bothered, Mr Kelifa said.
Nina Machibya, the manager of the centre where Mr Kelifa is staying, said the goal of the course is that participants will “at least know the difference between right and wrong.”
Per Isdal from non-profit foundation Alternative to Violence, who run some of the courses, adds that many of the migrants “come from cultures that are not gender equal and where women are the property of men.”
“We have to help them adapt to their new culture,” he said.
The former police chief in the town of Stavanger, Henry Ove Berg, said he supports the courses because “people from some parts of the world have never seen a girl in a miniskirt, only in a burqa” and when they arrive in Norway “something happens in their heads.”
He added there was “a link but not a very clear link” between the town’s immigration community and a rise in rape cases. Only three of 20 men found guilty in those cases were not immigrants.
Hanne Kristin Rohde, former head of the violent crime department for Oslo Police, caused outrage in 2011 when she went public with data suggesting migrants commit a disproportionate number of rapes and blamed this on “cultural factors”.
“This was a big problem but it was difficult to talk about it,” she said, adding there is a “clear statistical connection” between rape and male migrants from countries where “women have no value of their own”.
In October, Breitbart London reported how Denmark is introducing similar classes as a pre-requisite before migrants can receive state benefits.
Norway’s Linda Harden said at the time: “It’s difficult if you come from a country where women never go out. When you see a girl with a short skirt dancing at a party late in the evening, what kind of message will it give you?
“It’s important to tell them that this kind of behaviour or clothing doesn’t mean that your’e allowed to go the whole way. If a girl says ‘no’, it’s a ‘no’.”
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