Many organizations show solidarity by calling for the use of alternative shelters for refugees through social and mainstream media.
Other activists throughout Germany, despite the current ban on contact, bring their outrage at the current situation to the public in various ways: some hang banners on their balconies, others go to demonstrations despite the pandemic, by bicycles and cars for example, or the current safety measures with a minimum distance of 1.5m are strictly adhered to.
Our long-standing campaign “No lagers for women and children! Abolish all lagers!”, which addresses one of the most urgent problems of refugee women and highlights the intertwining of racism and sexism, is up-to-date on this first anniversary of the disappearance of our sister Rita, as well as in times of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In view of the shocking and still unsolved murder of our sister Rita, as well as our struggles for justice, we hope for your solidarity and support. We want to make “Rita’s” case a symbol of resistance against both the forced isolation of refugees and the violence against refugee women.
Women and children who are forced to live in camps are not only victims of discriminatory asylum laws (e.g. no freedom of movement, racist police checks, ban on employment, etc.), but also victims of sexual harassment and violence.
Children living in camps have to grow up in an environment that is not child-friendly at all. Often the consequences of these living conditions are physical, but above all psychological health issues. On the one hand, the constant presence of the police, who violently take people out of the camps in order to deport them, leads to traumas in their psycho-social development. On the other hand, the Covid-19 pandemic shows the disadvantages and dangers to which the refugees in the camps, especially the children, are exposed (for details see press release: https://www.women-in-exile.net/menschenleben-schuetzen-massenunterkuenfte-aufloesen-wohnungen-statt-lager/#more-6341).
For this reason we call on politicians* from Germany, Europe and the whole world, while they are fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, to find a solution for the problematic accommodation in camps, especially now with the danger of the Covid Virus!
# Fight against Covid-19 + fight against Lagers!
# Justice for Rita
