Faeser wants to protect women
UN: Ten million people have already fled
3/20/2022, 3:01 p.m
The war in Ukraine is already turning millions of people into refugees – most of them women and children. According to the UN, the risk of them being caught by human traffickers is increasing. Federal Minister of the Interior Faeser therefore announces the full “hardness of the law”.
According to the UN, around ten million people have already been forced to flee as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. These people either fled to other places within Ukraine or outside the country, wrote the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, on Twitter. According to the UNHCR, almost 3.4 million people fled to other countries to escape the war.
Since the start of the Russian attack on February 24, tens of thousands have been arriving in Ukraine’s western neighbors, mainly Poland, every day. 90 percent of them are women and children. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 can be drafted into the military and are not allowed to leave the country. The UN children’s fund Unicef warned that 1.5 million children were among the war refugees abroad. The danger that these children will become victims of human trafficking is “real and increasing”.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has already announced that a high police presence will protect women arriving in Germany from Ukraine from attacks by human traffickers and sex offenders. “Anyone who tries to take advantage of the plight of the refugees should know: We react to such acts with all the severity of the law,” Faeser told the “Bild am Sonntag”. Nobody should abuse the suffering of the refugees.
Ukrainian women are already victims of harassment
“Such attacks are deeply despicable,” said the interior minister. There is therefore a massive police presence at the train stations, “in uniform and in civilian clothes”. Everyone is sensitized to immediately report and intervene in any hazard. The federal police have already issued several evictions, and among the suspected men were convicted sex offenders. In train stations, but also in front of immigration authorities, young Ukrainian women are increasingly being harassed by pimps and human traffickers and lured with money and free accommodation.
Before the Russian attack, 37 million people lived in Ukraine in the regions controlled by the government in Kyiv. Excluded from this count are the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 and the pro-Russian separatist areas in the east.