Viral posts allege that underwear designed to protect women from sexual assault has gone on sale in Europe, and use the claims as a pretext to spread xenophobic rhetoric.
Far-right figures and other social media users are sharing a clip which they wrongly claim shows a new European-developed brand of "anti-rape" underwear.
The X posts, such as one by British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, attempt to whip up xenophobic sentiment by suggesting that Europe is bringing in the underwear to protect women from immigrants, rather than closing its borders or stopping migration from the "third world".
The video features Spanish subtitles and says that the underwear will protect the user from rape, because it doesn't tear, can’t be cut and has a special latch that only opens in a specific position.
It also says that the underwear was developed in the US and that a German company has launched similar products.
In the corner of the video, we can see a logo for "AR Wear". A Google search of the company leads us to a page on the American crowdfunding website Indiegogo.
We can see that AR Wear launched a campaign in 2013 to eventually produce the underwear, amassing just under $55,000 (€48,000) in donations, but it's now closed.
AR Wear said its goal was to offer "wearable protection for when things go wrong", in a wide range of styles and in a form that was difficult to remove by force or stealth.
The company last posted an update in 2016, in which it outlined difficulties in the manufacturing process.
"Many of the impediments to our progress are related to the difficulty of maintaining the high quality required for the garment to retain the defensive attributes of the prototypes while moving to a realistic method of mass production within an affordable final product price range," AR Wear said in March 2016. "We will update you when we have some real progress to report and thank you for your continued support."
Internet users have also repeatedly posted unanswered comments in recent years, suggesting the product was never released to the public.
"Hi, any updates since 3 years ago?" one comment from 2019 says. "Sooooo, you guys just ran with our money?" another from 2018 asks.
On the crowdfunding page, we can also find the full, original version of the clip posted on X.
The Spanish subtitles in the smaller clip appear to originate from Spanish-language video service Vix, as we can see an older version of its logo in the top-right corner of the video.
As for the German company mentioned in the clip, we can see another logo for "Safe Shorts" in the bottom right corner of the clip when the company is mentioned.
Another Google search takes us to various articles written in 2017 and 2018 about Safe Shorts, which turns out to be a brand of anti-rape shorts created by Sandra Seilz, a woman in Germany who was the victim of attempted rape.
The pictures of the product match the ones from the German company shown in the clip, but The Cube was unable to track down any website or contact details for the company, suggesting that they're no longer available.
The Google search also shows us that this isn't the first time that the video has spread as part of a misleading narrative in Europe. It points us towards a previous fact check produced by Spanish broadcaster RTVE in 2024.
Rising reports of sexual violence across the EU
Data shows reports of sexual violence are increasing in the EU. In April, Eurostat showed that the number of sexual violence offences, including rape, had risen by 79.2% in 2023 compared with 2013.
Rape offences, as a part of sexual violence offences, more than doubled during this period, representing a 141% increase.
Eurostat noted that the higher number of police-recorded sexual violence offences was closely connected to raising awareness in society, possibly boosting reporting rates.
A separate Eurostat dataset published in 2024 found that around one in three women in the EU have experienced physical or sexual violence since being adults.
The same report revealed that 13% of women reported experiencing rape or other degrading or humiliating sexual acts.