Male asylum-seekers are banned from swimming pool over sex harassment fears

Male asylum-seekers have been banned from a public swimming pool after women complained they were being sexually harassed. Men at three nearby migrant centres would be barred until they got the message “the right of women in Germany is inviolable”, officials in Bornheim, 20 miles south of Cologne, said. It follows complaints from six people “over the sexually offensive behaviour of some migrant men at the pool”.

There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool … by groups of young men, and this has prompted some women to leave.

Markus Schnapka, deputy mayor or Bornheim

Public distrust of asylum seekers has grown in the country after hundreds of women told police they were groped and robbed by mostly Arab and North African men on New Year’s Eve in Cologne. Markus Schnapka, deputy mayor of Bornheim, said male asylum-seekers would be banned from the town’s pool until they “got the message”. He said officials have launched a campaign to teach migrants about gender equality and respect for women. Elsewhere, a carnival parade in Rheinberg, a town north of Cologne, has been cancelled after organisers said they would not be able to provide suitable security arrangements. The event on 8 February was axed because the parade route would have passed an asylum shelter housing 500 residents

it’s clear that many innocent refugees are also affected by this

Mr Schnapka