Refugees Welcome Bonn e.V. wants to comment on the incidents that happened on party on the Township on Nov. 7th and was co-organized by our group. On the party we observed that some men molested, touched and harassed women. As co-organizer we want to apologize. During the party we tried to identify the offenders and make the leave the venue; also we made announcements where we asked to stop this behavior immediately. However, these measures were not successful. We apologize for that! Those men cast a negative light on our organization as well as on all men and male refugees, who were at our party. This misbehavior does not, however, reflect the attitude of the vast majority of the refugees. But it entraps to a generalization that we do not want to follow. Single men, who do not know how to behave, exist in every country and society as well as patriarchal structures which come to light through such behaviour. However, we do not want to deny that there are cultural differences¬¬. But instead of just adversely pointing fingers at those who misbehave, we believe it’s as important for everyone in our civil society to tackle these differences in the daily integration.
For that reason we will increase our efforts to give no space to such behaviour during our upcoming parties and other events. We believe it’s essential to treat each other with respect and share the idea of a general equality between all human beings. That necessarily includes, akzepting a „No“, when making advances to somebody, instead of forcing your will on another person.
We as a group campaign for this. Still it has to be said clearly, that this kind of behavior is not acceptable and not tolerated in our group.
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