Abstract

This paper is a first attempt to understand trends in reporting sexual violence in a comparative perspective, focussing on the European trends of the last decades, on the role played by rape reform laws in two countries (Sweden and Italy) and on an explorative comparison with the same trends in the US. The paper stresses the methodological complexity of this analysis, the need of more reliable sources of information at the European level and the importance of a gender perspective in understanding the current trends of rape across countries.