Special to WorldTribune.com

Thousands of Germans demonstrated on Sept. 21 against what is called the “Islamization of Europe” as reports also said a growing number of women and young girls housed in shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers.

Some senior politicians in Germany are calling for a cap on the numbers of migrants the country accepts.

European Union ministers are meeting to try to resolve a dispute over how to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers who have recently arrived in Europe and some central European states have resisted calls for EU members to accept mandatory quotas.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said two weeks ago that the quotas were “a first step” towards a more permanent scheme to deal with the influx. Some apply for asylum in Austria but most say they want to go on to Germany

The UN says the EU’s plans will not be enough.

Last month, a coalition of four social work organizations and women’s rights groups sent a two-page letter to the leaders of the political parties in the regional parliament in Hesse, a state in west-central Germany, warning them of the worsening situation for women and children in the refugee shelters.

The letter said:

“The ever-increasing influx of refugees has complicated the situation for women and girls at the receiving center in Giessen (HEAE) and its subsidiaries.

“The practice of providing accommodations in large tents, the lack of gender-separate sanitary facilities, premises that cannot be locked, the lack of safe havens for women and girls — to name just a few spatial factors — increases the vulnerability of women and children within the HEAE. This situation plays into the hands of those men who assign women a subordinate role and treat women traveling alone as ‘wild game’.

“The consequences are numerous rapes and sexual assaults. We are also receiving an increasing number of reports of forced prostitution. It must be stressed: these are not isolated cases.

“Women report that they, as well as children, have been raped or subjected to sexual assault. As a result, many women sleep in their street clothes. Women regularly report that they do not use the toilet at night because of the danger of rape and robbery on the way to the sanitary facilities. Even during daylight, passing through the camp is a frightful situation for many women.

“Most female refugees have experienced a variety of traumatizing experiences in their country of origin and while on the run. They are victims of violence, kidnappings, torture, rape and extortion — sometimes over periods of several years.

“The feeling to have arrived here — in safety — and to be able to move without fear, is a gift for many women…. We therefore ask you…to join our call for the immediate establishment of protected premises (locked apartments or houses) for women and children who are traveling alone”

  Angela Merkel, German anger grows at ‘Islamization of Europe’, WorldTribune.com