Bremen police have for more than a decade included advice in workplace self-assertion seminars that women facing a possible rape or sexual assault can deliberately induce vomiting, by sticking a finger down the throat to trigger the gag reflex, as one way to create disgust and interrupt an attacker.
Police spokeswoman Franka Haedke confirmed the guidance to the Kreiszeitung, stating: “In an emergency, such as attempted rape, defend yourself with all available means. Vomiting can also be an effective way to ward off a sexual offence.”
The sessions, run by the Central Police Prevention unit (Zentrale Polizeiliche Prävention), cover danger recognition, de-escalation and responses to sexual violence, and are offered to staff in companies, authorities, medical facilities, public transport, fire services and social offices. Haedke has said the courses should be actively promoted and run on a recurring basis.
The tip has now drawn criticism.
Women’s rights group Terre des Femmes told Bild it was “more than unsuitable” and said it shifts responsibility onto victims to prevent attacks, arguing prevention must start with men. The group has also said that victims are often in shock and freeze during an attack.
One woman who says she was a victim of rape said in a post on Instagram that she vomited during the rapes, not consciously, but in an involuntary physical reaction to the violence. Simone Ehrlich set out her account in an open letter published on the account “Herz aus Mut”.
In response to the backlash, Haedke has said the police “can of course understand the outrage,” stressing that vomiting is “explicitly not a general recommendation” but merely one of many possible reactions in an extreme situation, that no one is required to behave in a particular way, and that “the responsibility for a sexual assault lies exclusively with the perpetrator.” She has added that a single tip taken out of the wider seminar context can be irritating.
The controversy comes against a backdrop of rising recorded sexual offences in Germany and persistent public debate over safety, particularly in cities with high migrant populations such as Bremen.
Recorded cases of rape, sexual coercion and sexual assault under Section 177 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) reached 14,454 in 2025, a rise of 8.5 per cent on the previous year and the sixth consecutive annual increase, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). Recorded crime overall fell by 5.6 per cent in the same period, to 5,508,559 offences.
Criminologists and the BKA emphasise that the longer-run surge is heavily distorted by structural changes rather than a simple increase in criminal conduct, though.
On November 10, 2016, Germany implemented a sweeping reform of Section 177 under the “No means No” principle, legally expanding the offence to include non-consensual acts committed without physical violence or weapon use that previously went unrecorded or were classified as minor infractions.
Compounded by a measurable increase in victims’ willingness to report sexual offences, this legislative shift significantly broadened what police catalogue as serious sexual crimes and narrowed the number of offences that go unreported. The BKA states that comparisons with the years before the reform are possible only to a limited extent.
In Bremen itself, the number of suspects recorded for rape and serious sexual assault rose from 86 in 2015 to 145 in 2024, according to figures the Bremen Senate gave the Bürgerschaft, the city-state parliament, on February 17, 2026. Non-German suspects accounted for 70 of the 2024 total, against 30 in 2015.
Critics argue the advice underscores a failure of deterrence and policing rather than a practical solution.
German prosecutors have charged a paediatrician with 130 counts of child sexual abuse and rape allegedly committed over more than a decade at hospitals in the eastern State of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin.https://t.co/2QJhpbhVWf
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) May 15, 2026
