As Europe continues its conversation over the sexual
assaults by male refugees on New Year’s Eve in Germany, Sweden, Finland and
Norway, female refugees around Europe are facing the fear of sexual assault and
attacks everyday in refugee shelters and camps around the continent.
In 2015 reports from German social work organisations spoke
about how women and children in German refugee centres are being raped,
assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male refugees who deem them to
be ‘wild game’.
In August last year four social work organisations and
women’s rights groups in Hesse, Germany wrote a two page
letter requesting help for women in mixed gender shelters.
"The
ever-increasing influx of refugees has complicated the situation for women and
girls at the receiving centre in Giessen (HEAE) and its subsidiaries. The
practice of providing accommodation in large tents, the lack of gender-separate
sanitary facilities, premises that cannot be locked; the lack of safe havens
for women and girls — to name just a few spatial factors — increases the
vulnerability of women and children within the HEAE. This situation plays into
the hands of those men who assign women a subordinate role and treat women
travelling alone as 'wild game'. The consequences are numerous rapes and sexual
assaults. We are also receiving an increasing number of reports of forced
prostitution. It must be stressed: these are not isolated cases."
Women’s Rights Not a
Priority ?
This situation has now spread across many European nations
where female refugees and children are travelling. Jina More, a reporter for Buzzfeed argues that many of these women and children
are not aware of the dangers and aid agencies are not taking the problem into
account. According to an interview with the Senior Public Information Officers
for the UNHCR Melita Šunjiæ,
“ I’m fully aware of what you’re talking about, but these
issues happen when you register women in refugee camps, when certain people get
privileges and aid and others don’t, things like that. … At the moment this,
[sexual assault or exploitation] is definitely not the problem”
But the problem is, it is.
From forced marriages, domestic abuse to the trafficking of
women, female refugees are facing a brutal gauntlet to seek a better life and
due to a culture that hides sexual assault and violence, much of what these
women suffer is kept hidden from the public eye.
Backlash
Many female refugees fear a backlash if they report these
abuses. From being rejected by their husbands or relatives to death threats and
honour killings, the repercussions for many female refugees who are perceived
to have destroyed their families’ honour by being victims is very real.
Take the case described by one
psychologist in Germany , who told of a female refugee she was treating whose
husband had prostituted her to their smugglers to pay for their way to Europe.
He had then attacked her himself for damaging his honour. They are now
separated and her husband has been subjected to a restraining order, but she
lives in fear of an attack.
A very real fear given that in October last year Germany
witnessed an honour killing of a young Syrian migrant who is only known as
Rokstan M. She had been attacked by three men in Syria and had fled to Germany
with her family gaining asylum and working as an interpreter for the German
government.
In October 2015 her
body was found with stab wounds in her family’s garden in the German city of
Dessau while she had been visiting her family. In the days before her death she
posted on her Whatsapp profile that “I
am awaiting death. But I am too young to die.”
Europe’s Response
“All concerned national authorities in Europe to take measures to ensure the protection of women and girls, including through providing adequate and safe reception facilities. UNHCR also asks authorities, as a matter of urgency, to find alternatives to the detention of children.“
However, due to the extensive nature of the refugee crisis many shelters are overwhelmed. Furthermore, westernisation of refugees will take time. The concept that women should be treated in accordance with western mores, will still be an anathema to many of these young men who have been raised in an environment which secludes women.
Women rights although a burgeoning area of discourse are often abrogated in the Middle East and North Africa and it is not just men who must be educated but the women themselves who need to know their rights.
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