Safety of Women and Children
Numerous newspaper articles have recently been released stating that children, particularly females, as young as seven years old are being sexually harassed in the camps (Townsend, 2016). Of the refugees and asylum seekers who arrived in Greece this year, a fifth of them have been female and more than a third of them have been children (The UN Refugee Agency, 2016). There are clear issues arising in the camps concerning the safety of the women and children. Many women are scared to come forward and report incidences and are afraid to leave their tents and are too scared to use the toilets at night. “We stay in groups and only go to sleep when we are really tired. In the night, we don’t leave our tents and our children are forced to go to the toilet inside,” (Kosmopoulos, 2016).
Children in Education
As of August 21st, 2016 there are approximately 58,453 Persons of Concern (POCs) in Greece. 38% of the total number of POCs who arrived in Greece between January and August are children, many of them are unaccompanied (UAC) (The UN Refugee Agency, 2016).
Sadly, due to the lack of facilities and lifestyle in the camps, many of the children stranded in Greece have missed, on average, one and half years of education. Even more astoundingly,1 in 5 children have never attended school. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the CEO of Save the Children International recently stated that “of the 7.3 million child refugees in the world today, half don’t have access to education..."("Child refugees in Greece have been out of school for an average of one and a half years", 2016).
Girls in Education
Unfortunately, girls are at a particular disadvantage when it comes to education. In their home countries, the ratio of females to males is already staggeringly low. On top of this early marriage and motherhood is prevalent in many communities and contributes to many females not completing their schooling (Ngueuleu, 2016).
With the majority of refugees seeking to permanently assimilate into European communities, education is important to aid the cultural transition and help future generations to become productive members of society.