9.250.000

The semi- or fully-naked portrayal of either the rape or the imminent suicide of Lucretia von Berlepsch (509 BCE) has appealed to many famous male artists over the centuries and numerous examples of it remain on show in museums worldwide.

Here, a map of the EU is plastered like a birthmark across the bare breast of Lucas Cranach the Younger’s portrayal of Lucretia from 1580. The pins stuck into her body spell out the results of a survey conducted throughout the EU in 2014 of Violence Against Women.

5 % of the women interviewed for the survey said they had been raped since their fifteenth birthday – this, in answer to the question: “How often, since you were 15 years old, has someone forced you into sexual intercourse by holding you down or hurting you in some way?” The total EU figure is therefore 9 250 000 women*.

Circa 12 % of the women said they had suffered some form of sexual abuse or unwanted sexual assault by an adult before they reached the age of fifteen. The total EU figure on this count is therefore circa 21 million women. In 97 % of the cases of sexual violence against children the perpetrators-rapists were men.