Cologne victims ignored because they were women?

On New Year’s Eve, among the celebrators and the inebriated partying of those welcoming 2016, a wave of drunken men, reported to be of ‘Arabic or African origin’, sexually assaulted and robbed more than 100 German women in Cologne. Reports piled in of how groups of up to 20 to 30 men – many to which were armed – surrounded their female victims and assaulted them, after threatening them with rape if they did not do what they are told.

These are not isolated incidents, in addition to the events in Cologne, reports given to the police in Berlin, Hamburg, Bielefeld, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Vienna, Salzburg, Austria, Zurich, Sweden, Finland… an increasing number of lists of towns with similar reports of attacks on women are occurring across Europe. And yet we hear nothing.

The main question I would like to know, however, is why did the media take so long to report these attacks? I ask this as because in previous situations, such as when the horror of the terrorist strikes in Paris or another mass shooting occurs in America, we are shown the details immediately. But why is there not the same treatment when there is a large case of sexual harassment on German women?

Why is there not the same treatment when there is a large case of sexual harassment on German women?

Is it because it was directed at women? Is it a sexist lack of care from the world’s media? Or, is it because the suspected aggressors are said to have been recently welcomed migrants, and there has been a German government conspiracy to try and hush the violence? (As let’s be honest it makes both Mrs Merkel and the German police look pretty awful.)

Sabine Demmel, an Erasmus from Germany, studying English Literature mentioned that she felt it was “shocking that at first the police and probably politicians tried to keep it a secret. In their first report the police wrote that it had been a ‘peaceful night’. It took five days until the events became publicly known. It’s not just the media’s fault, but the police didn’t tell the media.”

Or, is it because the suspected aggressors are said to have been recently welcomed migrants?

Another shocking thing that’s come about after the Cologne attacks is the wave of journalists and politicians thinking it is okay to suggest how ‘women could prevent themselves from being sexually harassed’. The Mayor of Cologne (who may I add is a woman) suggested that German women should make sure to stay clear of men we don’t know, preferably at an ‘arm’s length’, to prevent themselves from being attacked. Urm … what?

Let me tell you something else to make that blood of yours boil, it is also rumoured that the victims were asked by journalists whether they were drunk and how short their skirt were. Not only is this disgusting, but it also insinuates that on some level of the harassment could have been the fault of the victim, and that is not okay.This sexist backlash towards the women is horribly not surprising, but what else is not surprising is that women are angry.

It also insinuates that on some level of the harassment could have been the fault of the victim

Bethan Wiggett, German studies 3rd Year Student, currently on her year abroad in Germany had this to say, “I’d been planning on going to the Cologne Carnival in February with two female friends, and when I told my dad, he was so worried about it that I’ve decided not to go. And then I got quite angry, because I realised that other male friends will probably still be able to go and the risk of sexual assault won’t even cross their minds.”

But the more I spoke to these women from or living in Germany, I realised something. Sexual harassment is already a large issue in Germany, like many other countries. Whether these are isolated incidences caused by groups of men who are from a different repressive culture that do not realise that they cannot act that way in a western culture or not, society and the police need to protect their women more.

Society and the police need to protect their women more.

“As a woman in Germany I feel very safe and that hasn’t changed with the increasing number of refugees,” wrote Becky Faber, a German and English literature student, “I think the attacks that happened in Cologne were ‘just’ an exception, a scary one, but there were a lot of influencing factors – and cultural heritage was one of them. Being attacked in the streets is highly unlikely.

The percentage of crimes against women that happen elsewhere, is significantly higher. I think if you’d asked how many women were assaulted by German men in clubs, or at parties or even in familiar environments by men they knew, the numbers would be shockingly high. Attacking women is a problem. Period. Even in Western society. The question should be, why so many women are getting assaulted even by men they know every day, and not who they were or where they came from.”

Faber isn’t the only one to bring up the subject of how sexual harassment or general sexist behaviour being an already prominent issue in Germany before the NYE attacks. I spoke to an English and German Literature 3^rd Year student, Jess Hargreaves, who relayed to me the unnecessary, uncomfortable attention she had received on her trip to Oktoberfest last year. Though she had a wonderful time, she felt “unwelcome at some points as a woman.”

Though she had a wonderful time, she felt “unwelcome at some points as a woman.”

Due to the fact that she felt that the overall attraction of the festival was overpoweringly directed at men, despite it being such a big Bavarian tradition. She told me that, “One man on a neighbouring table told me that beer contains a lot of calories and I should stop drinking to watch my weight; every time I sipped my beer, the table of men cheered and stuck their bellies out at me. It made me feel uncomfortable but the area was so male-dominated, I felt that I couldn’t do anything about it.” Another time, a man filmed her dancing, despite her and her friends telling him to stop.

No woman should have to deal with that sort of behaviour. In fact, no one should. I hope nothing else like this happens again, or the anger in Germany towards the refugees will only increase, and that opens the doors for history to unfortunately repeat itself.