Migrant women face ‘second trauma’ when reporting sexual abuse in France

A recent report from Amnesty International reveals that undocumented women in France face significant barriers when reporting sexual violence, often encountering hostility from the institutions meant to help them. French NGOs say law enforcement has increasingly threatened migrants with deportation, even going so far as putting them in detention centres when they try to press charges.

Amnesty International on Wednesday published a report highlighting the dire situation faced by migrant women who are victims of sexual violence in France.

The report, based on data from more than 20 civil organisations, sheds light on the “secondary victimisation” of these women, the institutional violence they suffer at the hands of police and judicial systems.

According to the National Observatory on Violence Against Women, a woman is raped every two minutes in France. Only 6% of rape or attempted rape victims filed reports in 2021, and a mere 0.6% of these cases led to convictions in 2020.


Read more on FRANCE 24 English

Read also:
‘I feel humiliated’: Gisèle Pelicot outraged by suggestions of complicity at France mass rape trial
Two years after the death of Mahsa Amini, a ‘quiet revolution’ is still under way in Iran
UN probe reveals crimes against humanity and war crimes in Libya