No 'safe' asylum for female refugees in Europe

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/no-safe-asylum-for-female-refugees-in-europe/a-18775017

Female migrants coming to Europe are exposed to physical and sexual violence while living in cramped shelters with other refugees. But cultural prejudices and trauma make it difficult for them to talk about abuse.

No 'safe' asylum for female refugees in Europe
Manasi Gopalakrishnan
11.10.2015

~snip~

Coming from the most dangerous countries

Most of the refugees coming to Europe have fled the Syrian civil war, a country which ranks at 139 of 142 countries in the 2014 Global Gender Gap report. But it is not just Syrian refugees making the journey, women from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and several other African and Middle Eastern countries - all considered amongst the dangerous in the world for women - are fleeing to Europe.

"It is particularly difficult to document crimes of sexual violence in the Syrian context," the FIDH (The Worldwide Movement of Human Rights) says in a briefing paper.

"Survivors are generally extremely reluctant to talk about their experiences, due in particular to stigmatization and cultural, social and religious pressures," the organization adds.

"It is very, very difficult for us," Nesrin tells DW. "I can't hold hands with a man and I cannot lie down in front of a man," she explains, adding that her culture is very conservative. "In Arabic society…if I don't talk to a man and don't give him signs, he won't bother me," she says, answering a question on whether she had any bad experiences traveling together in closed spaces with male refugees.