No cases of the use of date rape drugs have been uncovered in Luxembourg to date, Home Affairs Minister Léon Gloden said, despite prosecutors dealing with over 800 reports of rape in the past five years.

The issue of date rape drugs “is a regular topic in police investigations and cannot be ruled out,” Gloden said in response to a written parliamentary question submitted by Pirate Party deputy Marc Goergen, although there has been no confirmed case to date.

There are several reasons which make it extremely difficult for police to prove their use, Gloden said.

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“In many cases, the victims had consumed alcohol and, according to their own statements, could not remember the events and could not make a reliable statement. In other cases, an assault or rape was not reported in time, making the use of date rape drugs difficult or impossible to prove,” he said.

In addition, Gloden admitted that such incidents are not recorded separately in the Jucha (Justice Chaine Pénale) database of the judicial authorities, so there is a lack of meaningful statistics.

The national action plan against gender-based violence, which is currently being drawn up, will address this specific form of attack in which chemical substances are used to render potential victims defenceless.

Training, changes to the law, improved statistics and research, and enhanced support for victims are proposed, while the ministry’s partner organisations will support every such victim of violence, regardless of where the crime took place or whether chemical substances were involved.

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There were 182 rape cases recorded in 2024, compared to 191 the previous year, according to data provided by Gloden. In total, the public prosecutors in Luxembourg and Diekirch have dealt with over 800 rape cases over the past five years, but it is assumed that many more cases are going unreported, the minister said.  

(This article was originally published by the Luxemburger Wort. Translation and editing by John Monaghan)