Double Violence Against Refugee Women in Germany
Refugee women endure a very dangerous journey to reach Germany. After arriving in Germany, they also lack adequate security in the country’s accommodation facilities. Experts are calling for increased security measures for refugee women.
Ms. Inken Astner, an active human rights lawyer in Berlin, Germany, who works with refugee-related cases, believes that displacement and flight are particularly dangerous for women, and many women face violence and sexual assault during their escape.
This Berlin lawyer states on this matter: “Some women are forced during their escape to pay human traffickers’ fees by offering their bodies. Sex has taken its place as a form of currency in this realm.”
Read more: Refugee Women, Daily Victims of Sexual Assault
Ms. Astner says many refugee women are under severe psychological stress and have suffered serious mental health damage. However, they are unwilling to recount their negative experiences during escape, because they fear that describing sexual assault will negatively affect their asylum case.
Violence Against Migrant Women in Refugee Accommodation Centers
But violence during escape is not the only thing that causes serious psychological harm to refugee women. In many German refugee accommodation facilities, reports of conflicts surface from time to time.
Ms. Nivedita Prasad, a social worker who provides assistance to women who have suffered severe psychological trauma, has extensive experience in this regard.
This social worker, who works at the “Hellersdorf” refugee accommodation center in Berlin, says on this matter: “We frequently see women being harassed and abused by other male refugees or by police officers.”
In such circumstances, women typically do not file complaints, because they fear this action would negatively affect the outcome of their asylum case. This violence also exists within family settings. Abusive men exploit their wives’ fear of reporting the violence, but women have no opportunity to live separately from their abusive husbands if violence occurs. Ms. Heike Rabe, a member of the German Institute for Human Rights, criticizing this deficiency in refugee accommodation centers, is calling for secure living spaces throughout Germany to support refugee women facing violence from their husbands. Ms. Rabe states on this matter: “In such facilities, safe living spaces should be provided for victims of domestic violence.”
This demand by Ms. Rabe has also been proposed by the European Union, but has not yet been implemented by the German government. In Article 18, Section 4 of European Union law regarding refugee accommodation, it is stated that member states must provide conditions in their refugee accommodation facilities that prevent sexual and gender-based harassment and violence.
With the failure to implement this European Union law, refugee women in Germany face even more difficult conditions, and that is: in relation to the law requiring residence at a designated location, women do not have the right to leave their designated residential area without formal permission and must remain with their husbands and endure their violence.
