It is worth knowing what is happening with the Patrick Frei case in Switzerland. Frei, a former member of the Grand Council of Aargau for the SVP between 2021 and 2023, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting three women over a period of several years, including a girl under the age of 15. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking a life sentence. The charges include attempted murder, as the doses administered could have endangered the victims’ lives. Yes, you heard that right.
But what has left many people most astonished is not just the facts themselves. It is what happened to two of the victims: Polish workers living in Switzerland who, when they went to report the incident, found that the authorities were questioning whether their employment contract was genuine or a sham designed to obtain a residence permit. In other words: they had just reported a sexual assault, and the first thing they faced was the threat of deportation. In August 2026, the Aargau Administrative Court had to officially reprimand the Cantonal Migration Office.
The Swiss press is comparing this case to the French ‘Pelicot’ case. There are differences, but the underlying logic is recognisable: someone in a position of power, over a period of years, without anyone asking too many questions. The Federal Council has proposed amending the law so that victims of chemical submission are covered by accident insurance (LAA). At present, they are not, because the law requires the victim to have been able to resist or to demonstrate that they were suffering whilst fully conscious. A requirement which, when applied to someone who has been drugged, is downright Kafkaesque.
For people living in Switzerland in a situation of labour dependency – whether in domestic work or in any other context where there is a clear power imbalance – this case has a specific dimension: the victims were foreign workers with residence permits, and the first question raised was not whether their accounts were true, but whether they had the right to be here.