Over the weekend, several media outlets reported on a former employee of RFSL Stockholm who was accused of sexual assault and fired in March 2020. From the media's reporting, it can easily be perceived that this is something that happened now, but the events described have in fact occurred long before.
The first report from the victim was received in late summer 2019 when management received information pointing to the employee. Although the complainant was not prepared to report to the police, the decision was taken to investigate the allegations internally.
The investigator concluded that the information provided was not sufficient to take legal action against the employee, however, precautionary measures were taken and work was initiated to review the internal guidelines and procedures to strengthen the preventive work.
There is obviously reason for self-criticism here," says Jacob Tardell, Chairman. "With hindsight, we can see that the investigation was flawed. This affected the asylum seekers in particular. I would therefore like to offer both a formal and sincere apology to the victims from RFSL Stockholm.
A number of measures were developed in the fall, but we can see in hindsight that these were not good enough or sharp enough.
Six months later, in February 2020, a new complaint against the employee was submitted to RFSL Stockholm's management, which immediately set up a crisis group to get to the bottom of the rumors. In parallel, the employee was sent home. He was forbidden to come to the workplace or have any further contact with his clients.
Management also quickly concluded that the investigation should be run by an external security firm.
Members were informed about the investigation through emails, information meetings and on the website.
"Some people think that we should have involved the police already then, and I can understand that it sounds like an obvious step given what we know today. At the same time, it should be remembered that several of the informants did not want any contact with the police at that time," says Jacob Tardell. "In other words, the only viable option, as we saw it, was to let a security company investigate the whole thing so that we could then take legal action against the employee. The investigator could also support the victims in making a complaint on their own terms.
Then, of course, there was also the fact that we were able to speed up the process by hiring experts. We had already lost six months and if we had just gone to the police, we have no idea how long it would have taken for them to act.
The investigation lasted three weeks and the investigator in charge came to the conclusion fairly quickly that the informants were to be considered credible and that the events should be reported to the police.
Given the victims' status as asylum seekers or undocumented migrants, reporting to the police without their involvement could have been a further violation. That is why it was important that the victims themselves were the ones to report the case to the police, but of course we offered them support to be able to take the step. Our investigator was present when the actual report was made.
Regardless of the police report, the management decided to terminate the employee's employment at RFSL Stockholm with the support of the external investigation. This was also communicated to the members in the spring of 2020. In parallel, a number of measures have been taken to ensure that any future reports are handled with greater professionalism. This work is being carried out jointly throughout the union and this is a long-term work that is also about knowledge, culture, routines and compliance.
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This is a tragic issue from start to finish and I regret that we did not understand earlier what was going on. We lost six months that we can never give back to the victims, but I hope that the upcoming trial can still give them their just deserts.
