Most rapes in Greece go unreported

There are fears that most perpetrators of rape and sexual abuse in Greece go unpunished as a dearth of medical examiners means only a fraction of cases of sexual assault are officially reported. 

According to the General Secretariat for Gender Equality, around 5,000 rapes occur in the country every year. But only about 150 are certified by a medical examiner.

A key problem is that 30 of the country’s 51 prefectures have no medical examiner. “Imagine the suffering for a rape victim… to have to travel to find a medical examiner,” Grigoris Leon, head of the Hellenic Society for Forensic Medicine, told Kathimerini.