'I decapitate you' Women workers threatened and forced to DRESS DOWN at refugee centre
A FRUSTRATED refugee centre worker has revealed shocking incidents of cheating, death threats and demands for a luxury life from migrants.
By ALLAN HALL
GETTY
In a searing indictment of the behaviour of some refugees, the woman said her idealism has been eroded and virtually destroyed.
At first she said was enthusiastic in her role of helping process tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Germany on a weekly basis.
Now, she says she is disillusioned, disheartened and on the verge of quitting due to demands and sexual harrassment.
She told Welt am sonntag newspaper she took on the role at the refugee centre in Hamburg last Autumn and was "overjoyed" at the thought of "helping the refugees".
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But after a few days, she said, her enthusiasm was drained away.
The woman, whose identity has been protected, said: "Of course you may not assess all refugees the same: there are many who are very friendly, happy to be here, very grateful, very willing to be integrated.
"But if I am honest, working with 90 per cent of them is rather awkward and unfortunately not as I previously thought.
"First of all, many of them are extremely demanding. They come to me and ask to get an apartment and a fancy car and, best of all, even a really good job for them.
"If I try to explain to them that's not possible, they are often noisy or even really aggressive.
"An Afghan only recently threatened to kill himself. And a few Syrians and a group of Afghans have declared they would go on hunger strike unless I would help them to move to another place.
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"Some from an Arab region recently yelled at a colleague of mine: 'We decapitate you!'.
"Because of these and other things, the police were called to us several times a week."
She said she has also been horrified by refugees attitudes towards women.
She said: "It is well known that it is mainly single men who come here - about 65 per cent, many less than 25-years-old.
"And some of them do not respect women at all. They accept that we're there but they don't take us seriously at all.
"If I tell them or give them a statement, as a woman they barely listen to me, dismiss it as irrelevant and just contact one of our male colleagues.
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"For us women they have often only scornful looks - or just intrusive. They whistle loudly, say something to one another in a foreign language, laugh.
"It's really very unpleasant. It even happened that they have photographed us with their Smartphone.
"They do it without asking even if one has protested. I once walked up some steep stairs and some of the men walked behind me and they were laughing the whole time and, I guess, talking about me. They shouted something at me.
"Colleagues have told me similar things have happened to them. But they said that there's nothing you can do.
"If they whistled at me or said something to me I said nothing to encourage them - to make them feel they can hurt me or influence me.
"But that has not helped; It is even worse - honestly: especially in the last few weeks, as more and more men from North Africa, from Morocco, Tunisia or Libya are arriving here.
"They were more aggressive. I could ignore them no longer - and reacted."
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She said she has gone from wearing close-fitting clothes to "wide-cut trousers" and tops with high necklines. She also wears little make-up.
She added she has also made mental changes, adding: "I avoid, for example, going to those places at our site where I know single men gather.
"And if I do have some business there I try to get through it very quickly and smile.
"But mostly I spend all day if possible in my little office. And I no longer go by train to work or back - because the other day a colleague of mine was pursued by some of the young men and harassed, even in the railway carriage.
"I spare myself that and come to work in the car.
"I think it's horrible that I do this and I consider it necessary. But what should I do, what would be the alternative?"
The upset worker went on to claim information given by the refugees is often unreliable.
She said their papers and their story regularly do not match up.
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She added: "For example, a resident, who came with his deportation notice to me wanted to know what would happen now. I told him he would have to leave the country.
"Soon after, he went before my colleague and showed an entirely new set of documents under a different name, claiming he was this man with the different name.
"He was not expelled, but only moved to another camp.
"They rarely stick to things that have been agreed. They don't show up for medical appointments that have been made for them.
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"This happened so often that doctors asked us not to schedule any more appointments."
Quitting her role is the only option left she said but she sees this as failure.
She said: "Termination is really the only thing left for me. But I originally excluded that because I like my colleagues very much, the refugee children also.
"And I was previously so very convinced of the job and the whole refugee thing in itself; it is a little different than anyone has imagined. And the termination would of course recognize this admission.
"Now I think more specifically about it. Many colleagues also want to quit.
"Because they can stand it no longer."
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