Single women risk rape and exploitation in search for better life in Europe

Esther was sleeping on the streets of Lagos when a woman approached her promising a way to leave Nigeria to find work and accommodation in Europe.

She dreamed of a new life, especially in the United Kingdom. Kicked out of a violent and abusive foster home, she didn’t have much to stay with. But when she left Lagos in 2016 to cross the desert to Libya, she had no idea of ​​the traumatic journey that awaited her, forced into sex work and years of asylum requests in country after country.

The majority of irregular migrants and asylum seekers are men – 70% according to the European Asylum Agency – but the number of women like Esther, who have come to Europe to seek asylum, is increasing.

“We are seeing an increase in the number of women traveling alone, both on the Mediterranean and on the Balkan routes,” says Irini Contogiannis of the International Rescue Committee in Italy.

Its 2024 report highlights a 250% annual increase in the number of single adult women arriving in Italy via the Balkan route, while families increased by 52%.

Migration routes are notoriously dangerous. Last year, 3,419 deaths or disappearances of migrants in Europe were recorded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the deadliest year on record.

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

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

“Their experiences are different and often riskier,” IOM’s Ugochi Daniels told the BBC. “Even women traveling in groups often lack consistent protection, leaving them vulnerable to abuse by smugglers, traffickers or other migrants. »

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

“All migrants have to pay a smuggler,” explains Hermine Gbedo of the Stella Polare anti-trafficking network. “But women are often expected to offer sex as part of payment.”

Ms. Gbedo supports migrant women in Trieste, a port city in northeastern Italy that has long been a crossroads of cultures and serves as a major entry point to the European Union for those crossing the Balkans. From there they continue to countries like Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

After four months operating in Libya, Esther escaped and crossed the Mediterranean aboard a rubber dinghy from which she was rescued by the Italian coastguard 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 rejected. At the time, Italy considered Nigeria dangerous, but changed its mind two years ago when governments across Europe began tightening their rules in response to the massive influx of migrants to Europe in 2015-2016. Voices calling for more restrictions on asylum applications have only grown louder since.

“It is impossible to maintain mass migration, it is impossible,” says Nicola Procaccini, an MP in Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government. “We can guarantee a safe life for women who are truly in danger, but not for all.”

“We need to be tough,” warns Rakib Ehsan of the conservative think tank Policy Exchange. “We must prioritize women and girls who are at immediate risk in conflict-affected territories, where rape is used as a weapon of war. »

Currently this is not happening consistently, he claims, and while he sympathizes with the plight of women facing dangerous routes to Europe, “the key is controlled compassion”.

However, many women arriving from countries considered safe say the abuse they suffered because of their status as women has made life in their home country impossible.

This was the case of Nina, a 28-year-old Kosovar.

“People think everything is fine in Kosovo, but that’s not true,” she says. “Things are terrible for women.”

Nina says she and her sister were sexually assaulted by their boyfriends who forced them into prostitution.

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

Women who are persecuted due to gender-based violence are entitled to asylum under the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention, and this was confirmed in a landmark ruling by the EU’s highest court last year. The Convention details gender-based violence as psychological, physical and sexual – and includes female genital mutilation (FGM).

However, its terms are not yet applied consistently, according to charity groups.

“Many asylum officers on the ground are men who are not sufficiently trained to deal with such a delicate issue. [as female genital mutilation] – both medically and psychologically,” says Marianne Nguena Kana, director of the End FGM European network.

Many women have their asylum applications refused, she says, based on the erroneous assumption that because they have already undergone FGM, they face no additional risk.

“We had judges who told us: ‘You’ve been mutilated before, so it’s not dangerous for you to return to your country, because it’s not like they can do it to you again,’” says Nguena Kana.

When it comes to sexual violence, Carenza Arnold, of the British charity Women for Refugee Women, says it is 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 cannot reveal the sexual violence they have suffered to an immigration officer they have just met,” Arnold says.

Much of the violence women face takes place during their journey, the International Organization for Migration told the BBC.

“Women usually escape sexual violence from their partners in their country of origin and, during the journey, they experience the same thing again,” explains Ugochi Daniels.

This was the case for Nina and her sister during their journey away from their abusive partners in Kosovo to a new life in Italy. Traveling with other women, they trekked through the forests of Eastern Europe trying to avoid the authorities. There, they reported being attacked by male migrants and smugglers.

“Even though we were in the mountains, in the dark, we could hear the screams,” Nina remembers. “The men would come up to us with a torch, shine it in our faces, choose whoever they wanted and take them further into the forest.

“At night, I heard my sister crying, begging for help.”

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

Esther’s fight to obtain refugee status lasted much longer.

She first applied for asylum in Italy in 2016, but after a long wait she moved to France and then Germany, where her asylum requests were rejected because, under the EU’s Dublin Regulation, an asylum seeker is generally supposed to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter.

She finally obtained refugee status in Italy in 2019.

Nearly a decade after leaving Nigeria, she wonders if her current existence in Italy was worth the pain she endured to get there: “I don’t even know why I came here.”