Refugee girls, women subject to sexual violence en route to Europe, says rights group

Women and girl refugees coming into Europe face violence and sexual harassment at every stage of their journey, according to a new report from Amnesty International.

• Over 1 million refugees, migrants estimated to have entered Europe this year
• Merkel vows action on 'unacceptable' Cologne NYEsex assaults
• Sweden, Denmark introduce border checks to stem migrant flow

The report releasedby the human rights group was based on interviews with 40 women and girls in Germany and Norway last month who had traveled from Turkey to Greece and then across the Balkans.

Women and girls traveling alone or accompanied only by children said they felt particularly under threat in Hungary, Croatia and Greece, where they were forced to sleep alongside hundreds of male refugees. Those interviewed included female refugees from Iraq and Syria.

The vast majority of the refugees and migrants streaming into Europe are men, which leaves women particularly vulnerable, aid workers say. Women at camps reported having to use the same bathroom and shower facilities as men, and some said they did not eat or drink to avoid going to the toilet.

The report did not separate out incidents of sexual harassment from general violence. One 22-year-old Iraqi woman told Amnesty International that a uniformed security guard in Germany offered her clothes in exchange for spending time alone with him.

Some aid workers say violence is harder to prevent because of an ad hoc system for receiving and registering refugees.

"One of the challenges we have been facing is that it is taking a long time for the international community, and by that I mean governments, to wake up to this crisis and to realize that it is not something that they can wish away," Jenny Becker, protection co-ordinator with the International Rescue Committee in northern Lesbos,Greece, told The Associated Press.