Single women face sexual violence

Esther was sleeping on the streets of Lagos when a woman approached her, promising a route out of Nigeria to work and make a home in Europe.

She dreams of a new life, especially in England. She was kicked out of a foster home filled with violence and abuse, and nothing left her behind. But when she left Lagos in 2016 and crossed the desert for Libya, she had little idea of ​​the harrowing journey ahead, forced into sex work and seeking asylum in one country after another for years.

Most irregular migrants and asylum seekers are men (70%, according to the European asylum agency), but the number of women like Esther seeking asylum in Europe is increasing.

“We have seen an increase in the number of women traveling alone on the Mediterranean and Balkan routes,” said Irini Contogiannis of Italy’s International Rescue Committee.

Its 2024 report highlights that the number of single adult women arriving in Italy via the Balkan route increases by 250% annually, while the number of families increases by 52%.

Migration routes are notoriously dangerous. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded that 3,419 migrants died or went missing in Europe last year, the deadliest year on record.

But for women, there is the additional threat of sexual violence and exploitation, which happened to Esther after she was betrayed by the woman who promised a better life.

“She locked me in a room and brought a man in. He had sex with me by force. I was still a virgin,” Esther said. “This is what they do…go to different villages in Nigeria to pick young girls and then take them to Libya to be sex slaves.”

“Their experiences are different and often more risky,” Ugochi Daniels of the International Organization for Migration told the BBC. “Even women traveling in groups often lack ongoing protection, resulting in them being abused by smugglers, traffickers or other migrants.”

Many women are aware of the risks but go anyway, wearing condoms or even contraceptive devices in case they are raped along the way.

“All migrants have to pay smugglers,” said Hermine Gbedo of Stella Polare, an anti-trafficking network. “But women are often expected to provide sexual services as part of their payment.”

Ms Gerbedo supports female migrants in the northeastern Italian port city of Trieste, which has long been a crossroads of cultures and the main point of entry for those crossing from the Balkans into the EU. From here, they continued to countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

After four months of being exploited in Libya, Esther escaped and crossed the Mediterranean in a rubber dinghy, where she was rescued by the Italian coast guard and taken to the island of Lampedusa.

She applied for asylum three times before being granted refugee status.

Asylum seekers from countries considered safe are often turned away. At the time, Italy considered Nigeria unsafe, but changed that assessment two years ago as European governments began tightening rules in response to the massive influx of migrants into Europe in 2015-16. Since then, calls have grown for further restrictions on asylum applications.

“It is impossible to maintain mass immigration – there is no way,” said Nicola Procaccini, a lawmaker in Giorgio Meloni’s right-wing government. “We can guarantee a safe life for those women who are truly at risk, but not all of them.”

“We have to keep a cool head,” warned Rakib Ehsan of the Center for Policy Exchange, a conservative think tank. “We need to prioritize women and girls who are at direct risk in conflict-affected areas, where rape is used as a weapon of war.”

He believes this is not happening consistently and, while he sympathizes with the plight of women facing dangerous routes into Europe, “the key is to control empathy”.

However, many women from countries they consider safe claim they have been abused for being women, meaning life in their home countries has become impossible.

This is the case for Nina, a 28-year-old girl from Kosovo.

“People think everything is fine in Kosovo, but that’s not the case,” she said. “Things are scary for women.”

Nina said she and her sister were sexually abused by her boyfriend, who forced them into sex work.

A 2019 report by the European OSCE security organization showed that 54% of Kosovar women have experienced psychological, physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15.

Women persecuted as a result of gender-based violence are entitled to asylum under the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention, which was upheld by a landmark ruling by the EU’s top court last year. The convention details gender-based violence as psychological, physical and sexual violence, including female genital mutilation (FGM).

However, its provisions have not yet been applied consistently, according to charities.

“Many asylum officers in the field are men who are not adequately trained to deal with such a delicate issue like female genital mutilation – both medically and psychologically,” said Marianne Nguena Kana, director of the European Network to End Female Genital Mutilation.

She said many women had their asylum claims rejected because they mistakenly believed that because they had already undergone female genital mutilation, they would not face further risks.

“The judge said to us: ‘You have been mutilated, so it is not dangerous for you to return to your country because they cannot do this to you again,'” Engana Khana said.

When it comes to sexual violence, Karenza Arnold of the British charity Refugee Women says it’s often harder to prove because it doesn’t leave the same scars as physical torture, and women’s taboos and cultural sensitivities make the process even more difficult.

“Women are often rushed through the process and may not disclose the sexual violence they have experienced to an immigration officer they have just met,” Arnold explained.

The International Organization for Migration told the BBC that much of the violence women face occurs while traveling.

“Women often escape sexual violence from their partners in their country of origin, and then while traveling, they experience the same thing again,” Ugochi Daniels said.

Such was the case for Nina and her sister on their journey away from abusive partners in Kosovo to start a new life in Italy. Together with other women, they hiked through the forests of Eastern Europe in an attempt to evade the authorities. There they said they were attacked by male migrants and smugglers.

“Even though we were on the mountain, in the dark, you could hear the screams,” Nina recalled. “These men would come up to us with torches, shine them in our faces, pick out who they wanted and take them deep into the forest.

“At night, I could hear my sister crying, asking for help.”

Nina and her sister told Italian authorities that if they returned home, they would be killed by their ex-boyfriend. They were eventually granted asylum.

Esther’s fight for refugee status took much longer.

She first applied for asylum in Italy in 2016, but after a long wait she moved to France and then to Germany, where her asylum application was rejected because, under the EU’s Dublin Regulation, asylum seekers generally need to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter.

In 2019, she finally obtained refugee status in Italy.

Nearly a decade after leaving Nigeria, she wonders whether her current presence in Italy is worth the pain she endured to get there: “I don’t even know why I came to this place.”