Country Profile Sweden

General Country Information

Summary

There is one national women’s helpline in Sweden which is free of charge, operates 24/7, and provides multilingual support. The exact number of women-only shelters in Sweden is unknown, however, according to the National Board of Health and Welfare there are 257 shelters accessible to women, with at least 2,219 beds. The number of women’s centres is also unknown but taking into account only Unizon’s and Roks’ member organisations, there are over 200 centres providing support to women and girls. Sweden has services for women and girls who have experienced sexualised violence. Measures related to primary prevention are included in the National Strategy to Prevent and Combat Men’s Violence against Women 2017–2026, and there is a specific budget allocated to such activities. The state collects data on women’s specialist support services, including primary prevention activities, and this data is publicly available. It should however be noted that the National Board of Health and Welfare focuses on shelters in general and the collected data is gender neutral.¹

Women’s Specialist Services

There is one national women’s helpline in Sweden called the National Women’s Helpline (Kvinnofridslinjen, tel.: 116 016) which is free of charge and available 24/7. Sweden therefore meets the Istanbul Convention minimum standards for the provision of a national women’s helpline. The helpline offers multilingual support through interpreters in different languages. Support via chat is also offered (in Swedish) on Mondays and Thursdays from 15:00–21:00 and on Sundays from 11:00–17:00. The helpline is run by the National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women (NCK), on behalf of the Swedish Government. Kvinnofridslinjen provides support to survivors of threats or physical, psychological or sexualised violence. The helpline is funded by the state, and a total of 48,369 calls were answered in 2024, with an average of 133 calls per day.

There are other helplines supporting survivors of violence against women in Sweden, such as Terrafem (tel.: +46 20521010) which is a feminist women’s organisation that offers support in over 70 languages primarily to immigrant women of all ages, including legal support. Additionally, women’s crisis centres and empowerment centres for young women and youth in Sweden also provide support via phone and chat. They get support requests not only from their home regions/municipalities but also from other regions in the country.

There are women-only shelters in Sweden but the exact number is not known as there are no accurate statistics on women-only shelters. The National Board of Health and Welfare conducted a new mapping of shelters in Sweden which was published in December 2024 and, similarly to the previous report published in 2020, the report does not divide shelters into women-only and others. According to the new report, the overall number of shelters has decreased from 282 in 2019 to 257 in the 2024. A total of 190 shelters answered the questionnaire for the national mapping report, offering 2,219 beds for adults and 2,516 beds for accompanying children. The number of available bed spaces has increased since 2019, which can be explained by the fact that shelters have become larger. All 190 shelters that responded to the questionnaire accept women, and 54% also accept men. In the previous report from 2019, it was indicated that 38% of the shelters accepted men, and in 2016, that figure was 16%. Those shelters that accept men subjected to violence state that they do not place men together with women – instead, men are placed in separate apartments. Some of the shelters in Sweden offer 24/7 access and beneficiaries are not expected to pay for their accommodation. All shelters offer casework, counselling/psychological support, referrals/collaboration with other services, practical advice, and legal advice, although the extent of provided services varies by shelter.

Most shelters in Sweden can be accessed by and are accessible to refugee women, homeless women, women with physical or cognitive disabilities, older women (65 years and above), transgender women, and women with older sons (14 years and above). Some shelters can accommodate women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, women with sensory disabilities, women with substance abuse issues, women with children with disabilities, and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. In addition, there are specific shelters for women with substance abuse issues, women subjected to prostitution, pornography and trafficking,³ and women survivors of honour-based violence.

Funding for shelters comes from the state as well as donations. However, it should be highlighted that donations are not common and that only very few shelters have donations as their main source of funding. Shelters in Sweden are run by NGOs, private profit-driven actors, and municipalities. Although there are no aggregated national statistics on women-only shelter services for women survivors of violence in Sweden, there are women’s NGOs with a gender-specific and feminist approach that provide women-only shelter services. These primarily operate within two women’s networks, Unizon and Roks (Riksorganisationen för kvinnojourer och tjejjourer i Sverige). In 2024, Unizon had 149 member organisations, including 95 crisis centres and shelters for women, 40 empowerment centres for young women and youth, 11 specialised support services for survivors of sexualised violence, one specialised support organisation for children, and two others. Roks had 64 member organisations in 2024, including 41 crisis centres and shelters for women and 23 empowerment centres for young women. There are also several women’s NGOs outside of Unizon or Roks, for instance, Women’s shelter Jamtland County (Kvinnojouren Jämtlands län), Uppsala Women’s Shelter (Uppsala Kvinnojour), and Talita, which is a safe house for women in prostitution, pornography, and other forms of sexualised exploitation⁴. There has been an increase in the proportion of shelters run by private profit-driven actors in Sweden. In 2012, only 8% of shelters were run by private profit-driven actors. This figure grew to 37% in 2019, and in the latest mapping report, it stands at 47%. At the same time, the proportion of non-profit shelters has decreased from 54% in 2019 to 46% in the first quarter of 2024.

According to the general data on shelters available at the national level, there are shelters for women and other persons subjected to violence in all regions of Sweden, but not in all municipalities. In 2024, women stayed an average of 61 days in Unizon’s shelters, compared to 50 days in 2022, 55 days in 2020, and 66 days in 2018. The main reasons why shelters had to decline referrals were no space/capacity to support the survivor, the survivor being ineligible for support, and the shelter not being adequately equipped for the needs of the women/children. For example, many shelters cannot accommodate or provide support to women with active substance abuse or severe mental health problems. According to Unizon’s data, physical violence and psychological violence were the most common forms of violence reported by survivors to shelters. These forms of violence were commonly reported to other women’s shelters not part of Unizon alongside other forms of violence such as sexualised and economic violence. Moreover, two of the most common requests that Unizon’s member organisations receive from women survivors are housing support and child custody related support. There are no nation-wide statistics on this matter. In 2024, a total of 679 women, nine young adults, and 672 children were accommodated in Unizon’s women’s shelters.

There are women’s centres in Sweden although the exact number is unknown as there is no aggregated data on women’s centres on a national level. Taking into account only Unizon’s and Roks’ member organisations, as well as the data provided by the National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women (NCK), there are over 200 crisis and empowerment centres providing support to women and girls. Services provided by women’s centres include counselling/psychological support, legal advice, financial and social welfare support/advocacy, housing advice, employment, referrals/collaboration with other services, representation at court/police/social services, and residential support services. Women’s centres also provide specialised support for survivors of sexualised violence, including needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy series, community awareness and education for prevention, as well as legal advice.

Most women’s centres can be accessed by and are accessible to refugee women, women with physical or cognitive disabilities, older women (65 years and above), transgender women, and unaccompanied girls under the age of 18. Some women’s centres can support women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women and women with sensory disabilities. There are also women’s centres specialised in supporting survivors of forced marriage, honour-based violence, female genital mutilation, and trafficking. Additionally, there are specialised women’s centres for Black and minority ethnic women, women survivors of rape and incest, women subjected to prostitution, pornography and other forms of sexualised exploitation⁵, as well as women with substance abuse issues.

Funding for women’s centres comes mainly from the state and donations, however, there are only a few organisations that have donations as their main source of funding. Women’s centres are run by the state and NGOs, and there are women’s centres in all regions of Sweden, but not in all municipalities. In 2024, Unizon’s member organisations had nearly 147,000 support contacts, and the majority of those seeking support (88%) were women.

There are services for survivors of sexualised violence in Sweden including rape crisis centres, sexual violence referral centres, crisis/medical services, as well as specialised helplines. Although there is no aggregated data on the number of specialised services, women’s shelters, crisis centres and empowerment centres for women and girls do provide specialised support for survivors of different forms of sexualised violence and exploitation. According to Unizon’s statistics from 2024, there are 11 member organisations providing services for survivors of sexualised violence. Sexual violence referral centres exist in some dedicated hospital settings, for instance, Emergency Clinic for Rape Victims at Södersjukhuset (SÖS) in Stockholm, or out-patient clinic Kvinnofridsmottagningen at University Hospital. Available services include specialist forensic and medical care, needs assessment, specialist psychological care, specialist sexualised violence advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention, as well as legal advice. Funding for sexualised violence services comes from the state and donations. That said, donations as the main source of funding are not common. Sexualised violence services are located just in major cities and are available to all survivors of sexualised violence.
Specialised helplines include Big Sister (Storasyster) available via chat both for survivors of sexualised violence and for their relatives/close persons. Both chats are open daily, Sunday to Thursday from 19.00–21.00 and Friday to Saturday from 13.00–15.00. Additionally, Rise, the National Association against Incest and other Forms of Sexual abuse in Childhood, is a helpline and chat for survivors of sexualised violence and for their relatives/close persons. The chat is open every day except for Fridays from 20.00–21.00. The telephone helpline (tel.: +46 86960095) is open on Mondays from 21.00–22.00, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 19.00–20.00 and on Wednesdays from 14.00–15.00. Ellencentret is an organisation supporting survivors of sexualised exploitation between the ages of 15 and 25 which operates a chat that is open on Mondays from 13.00–15.00, Wednesdays from 15.00–17.00 and Thursdays from 17.00–19.00. Finally, Alltid sedd (Always Seen/Visible) provides support to survivors of sexualised exploitation via a chat that is open every Tuesday and Thursday from 19.00–21.00.

Public authorities such as the Gender Equality Agency in Sweden do collect data and follow up on different primary prevention programmes and efforts. Additionally, research institutes and universities conduct evaluation of primary prevention programmes and efforts on behalf of the Gender Equality Agency. The National Strategy to Prevent and Combat Men’s Violence against Women 2017-2026 includes specific provisions on primary prevention. However, there is no official definition of primary prevention on a national level. The Gender Equality Agency, as well as other authorities and organisations, use different definitions that overlap to a large extent. There is a specific budget allocated to primary prevention activities and the state does fund such activities which include feminist self-defence trainings, empowerment activities for girls and women, primary prevention activities specifically targeting men and boys, school-based primary prevention programmes, trainings for primary prevention practitioners, bystander intervention training, and awareness-raising campaigns. Different activities and primary prevention programmes/efforts are common in Sweden, especially in schools. These programmes are usually run by NGOs, but NGOs do also train schoolteachers and other professionals working with children and youth to perform preventive work themselves. There are also programmes that specifically focus on consent-based and pornography-critical sex education.

1. The terms that the National Board of Health and Welfare uses in their mapping report are, for instance, “shelters for persons subjected to violence”, “adult(s)
   subjected to violence”, and “children subjected to violence”. ↩︎
2. This number only includes the beds in the 190 shelters which answered the questionnaire for Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare shelter mapping
   report. ↩︎
3. In Sweden, prostitution is considered a form of men’s violence against women by law. ↩︎
4. In Sweden, prostitution is considered a form of men’s violence against women by law. ↩︎
5. In Sweden, prostitution is considered a form of men’s violence against women by law. ↩︎