Female migrants to Europe face violence: Amnesty

A woman carrying her child walks along a dirt road with other migrants and refugees after crossing the Macedonian border into Serbia near the village of Miratovac on January 7, 2016.

London - A 22-year-old said a uniformed security guard in Germany offered her clothes in exchange for spending time alone with him.

By AP

Published: Mon 18 Jan 2016, 6:36 AM

Last updated: Mon 18 Jan 2016, 1:00 PM

Women and girl migrants coming into Europe face violence and sexual harassment at every stage of their journey, according to a new report from Amnesty International.
The report released on Monday by the human rights group was based on interviews with 40 women and girls in Germany and Norway last month who had travelled from Turkey to Greece and then across the Balkans. Women and girls traveling alone or accompanied only by children said they felt particularly under threat in Hungary, Croatia and Greece, where they were forced to sleep alongside hundreds of male refugees. Those interviewed included female refugees from Iraq and Syria.
The vast majority of the migrants streaming into Europe are men, which leaves women particularly vulnerable, aid workers say. Women at camps reported having to use the same bathroom and shower facilities as men, and some said they did not eat or drink to avoid going to the toilet.

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The report did not separate out incidents of sexual harassment from general violence. One 22-year-old Iraqi woman told Amnesty International that a uniformed security guard in Germany offered her clothes in exchange for spending time alone with him.
Some aid workers say violence is harder to prevent because of an ad hoc system for receiving and registering refugees.
"One of the challenges we have been facing is that it is taking a long time for the international community, and by that I mean governments, to wake up to this crisis and to realize that it is not something that they can wish away," Jenny Becker, protection coordinator with the International Rescue Committee in northern Lesbos in Greece, told The Associated Press.