Female refugees face sexual exploitation in Greece - Al Jazeera English
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/12/female-refugees-face-sexual-exploitation-greece-151222191343353.html4
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), women travelling alone face a heightened risk of abuse as they move through Europe or stop in cramped reception centres.
The Moria camp, the island’s main registration site for non-Syrians, is where Samira spent her first night in Greece, crouched on the bare ground.
In October, when the refugee crisis had reached its apex and Lesbos was registering 4,400 people a day in a facility that holds just 2,500, the UNHCR and Save the Children expressed concerns over the risk of exploitation faced by women and children within the reception centre.
“Cases of sexual violence have been reported to our staff,” says Ron Redmond, a spokesperson for the UN agency in Greece. “On one of the islands, our protection staff prevented the rape of a young woman by a large group of men.”
Save the Children issued a report detailing cases of attempted sexual abuse, including one involving a young girl who was grabbed by a man as she went to the toilet. Other women and children interviewed by the organisation expressed their discomfort at having to sleep in tents with men who were unknown to them.
According to Eva Cossé, a researcher on Greece with Human Rights Watch, “The situation has now improved, not because of a better organisation but because the number of arrivals has fallen.”