Which countries have the highest and lowest reported rape rates per capita in 2024?
Executive summary
Different compilations of 2024-era data point to very different “highest” and “lowest” rape‑per‑capita rankings because national legal definitions, reporting practices and recent law changes make direct country-to-country comparisons unreliable; widely‑circulated lists often place Grenada, the United Kingdom and Sweden among the highest reported rates while countries such as Indonesia and some East Asian states appear near the bottom, but experts warn those positions largely reflect reporting and definition differences rather than a simple measure of prevalence [1] [2] [3].
1. What the headline lists say — competing top and bottom names
Publicly available rankings derived from UN and aggregated police records are the source for most “top” and “bottom” lists: one widely reposted compilation cited by outlets and databases lists Grenada and the UK at the very top, with Sweden, Panama and Iceland also high on the list, while other datasets and historical aggregations have put South Africa, Botswana or Sweden among the highest depending on year and method [1] [4] [5] [6].
2. Why those lists disagree — legal definitions and reporting changes
A major reason for disagreement is the shifting legal definition of rape: countries that adopted consent‑based laws in recent years (for example, Sweden earlier and Denmark, Spain and Finland more recently) recorded rises in reported rapes because the legal scope widened, not necessarily because violence increased, and researchers caution that a rise in recorded incidents can reflect improved reporting and broader statutes [3] [2].
3. The strong caveat from international authorities
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime itself does not recommend direct international comparisons of rape rates without careful contextualization because differing legal definitions, cultural reporting barriers and recording practices can distort apparent rankings — Reuters’ fact check of 2025 coverage emphasizes that point while documenting how sites like World Population Review republish UNODC-based figures that are frequently misread as direct measures of prevalence [1].
4. Which countries commonly appear highest in 2024‑era tables and why
Tables assembled or republished in 2024–2025 commonly put Grenada, the United Kingdom and Sweden among the highest per‑capita reported rape rates; other lists have shown Botswana or South Africa as leaders depending on the dataset and year — these placements often reflect active police recording, broad legal definitions and public awareness campaigns that increase reporting, rather than proving that the lived risk is categorically larger than elsewhere [1] [4] [5] [6].
5. Which countries commonly appear lowest and what that likely signals
Countries that register very low per‑capita rape counts in public datasets — frequently including Indonesia in some rankings and historically low figures in parts of East Asia — typically combine narrower legal definitions, cultural stigma, and strong under‑reporting, meaning low numbers likely conceal rather than confirm low incidence [1] [7].
6. How to read “highest” and “lowest” responsibly
The responsible interpretation is that “highest reported rape rate” names show where incidents are most frequently recorded under each country’s legal and reporting regime, and “lowest” often identify where cases are least likely to enter official statistics; academic trend analyses underscore broad geographic variation and pervasive under‑reporting globally, and caution against treating per‑capita police figures as direct cross‑national prevalence measures [8] [3] [1].
7. What reporting agendas and readers should watch for
Public lists can be weaponized for political narratives — for example, to suggest migration or cultural change drives sexual violence — when in fact legal reforms and improved reporting often explain apparent spikes; readers should therefore check whether a headline ranking cites UNODC, explains legal definitions used, and notes reporting limitations before accepting the “highest” and “lowest” labels as measures of actual prevalence [1] [2] [3].