While the number of female refugees in Germany is steadily growing, shelters for women that are supposed to protect them from rape and abuse are overcrowded and can’t accept all women in need.
German women’s shelters are lacking the resources to house women who have become victims of domestic violence or were sexually abused amid the ongoing refugee crisis, the head of the “Women Coordination” organization, Heike Herold, told Sputnik Germany.
The number of female migrants who have suffered physical violence and asked women’s shelters for help has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the 2015 migration crisis.
“We noticed that in recent months such a tendency has become more evident,” Herold noted.
In the activist’s opinion, the negative trend is likely to continue in the near future, posing a serious challenge to Germany’s women protection system.
“According to our statistics, the number of female migrants in women’s shelters has been growing for many years. At the moment, their average share [among women that need protection] in Germany already exceeds 60 percent. In large cities, this percentage is much higher,” Herold said.
Recent estimations show that 9,000 female refugees in Germany have found shelter in 360 facilities for women. However, it doesn’t seem to be enough.
Refugee centers lack staff and financial resources, which is why they can’t accept all the women that need protection.
“We need to say that the existing resources — even without taking into account further growth in the number of female refugees — are by no means sufficient. In any case, shelters for women need more staff and more places,” the activist said.
According to Herold, the shortage of both leads to the fact that some shelters are forced to refuse potential wards, and this is a “political scandal.”