The report released Monday by the human rights group was based on interviews with 40 women and girls in Germany and Norway last month who had traveled from Turkey up through the Balkans to reach western Europe.
“After living through the horrors of the war in Iraq and Syria these women have risked everything to find safety for themselves and their children,” Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response director, said in a news release. “But from the moment they begin this journey they are again exposed to violence and exploitation, with little support or protection.”
Women and girls traveling alone or accompanied only by children said they felt particularly under threat in Hungary, Croatia and Greece, where they were forced to sleep alongside hundreds of male refugees.