Illiberal and Populist Political Narratives on Gender and Underreporting of Sexual Violence: A Case Study of Hungary

Sexual violence is underreported all over the world. In this article, I argue that democratic backsliding undermines the reporting of sexual violence even further. The author’s team conducted in-depth interviews (n = 15) with representatives of civil society organizations, victims’ services, clinical practitioners, and child and family welfare in Hungary in 2017 and 2018, in search of organizational and structural causes to why sexual violence remains vastly underreported in the country with the least reported case numbers in Europe. The small but diverse sample helped identify associations between the reporting of sexual violence and repressive, gender-related political decisions such as threatening the existence of civil organizations undertaking victim support roles and providing victim services, a family-centered political narrative, and confining women’s roles solely for reproductive purposes. It is not possible to maintain causation since there are other factors interfering the association. Thus, instead of discussing it as a single cause of underreporting sexual violence, I present the Hungarian case to illustrate the consequences of illiberal politics on reporting. Furthermore, utilizing Slovič’s risk-benefit model, I argue that recent products of illiberal politics such as politicizing “gender” undermine trust, a precondition of asking for help and providing support for victims of sexual violence.