Hibba Kaussar, city councilor of the central-German city of Offenbach, is one of 60 prominent women who signed a public letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week, urging him to act on her statements expressing concern about the safety of women in German cities. The signatories call for action and concrete measures to improve the protection of women in Germany.
It comes two weeks after the chancellor said irregular immigration to Germany had declined since she took office, adding, “We still have this problem in the urban landscape,” which was interpreted as a reference to the diversity seen in Germany’s population.
Merz was unapologetic, repeating his comment the following week to a reporter who asked him to clarify it “Ask your daughter what I might mean.”
This has been called racist by critics, implying that immigrant men are more likely to commit sexual assault or other crimes, a claim not borne out by the data.
Merz’s comment sparked a very heated debate. There were street protests in many cities against the Chancellor’s words. Kausar, the 25-year-old daughter of Pakistani immigrants, gave the first speech at the protest in Berlin.
She is now supporting the initiative that wrote the letter, called “We are daughters – 10 demands from Friedrich Merz for our protection.” The group’s letter covers a range of topics, from better lighting and surveillance of public spaces to improving the prosecution of sexual and domestic violence.
Women demand better security
“I signed on to it right away,” says Hauser, “I think it’s very important that if we’re going to discuss the safety of our daughters, we at least do it properly.” Women’s shelters need to be better funded, and no woman should be turned away.
A very important point for Kausher is access: “If a woman does not have a German passport or does not speak German enough, she should not be discriminated against,” she says.
Kausar says she feels shocked by the discussions of the past few weeks. Born in a refugee shelter in Brandenburg, she joined the federal executive committee of the youth wing of the centre-left Social Democrat party two years ago and was also honored in 2024 for her outstanding commitment to local politics. Their story is an ideal story of rising from poor to rich, but despite this, the current debate makes them feel that their efforts are not being recognised.
“I was shocked, very sad, and very hurt,” Kausar says. “No matter what we do, no matter what we say, whether we graduate from college here, whether we change the world, whether we make a positive impact on society, we always have to prove ourselves double or triple to show that we belong here. Even though it shouldn’t really be a question, because we were born and raised here. But people constantly talk about us that way. Why are you doing it?”
Hibba Kausar says even her relatives in Pakistan were surprised and asked what kind of argument Germany was making.
fear in public places
When German TV talk shows on the topic of immigration recently began to focus on women’s safety, especially in public places, as a central topic of discussion, Kausher felt it was time to take a stand.
For decades, urban spaces have been designed from an entirely male perspective, with a focus on traffic, functionality and economic efficiency. However, key elements important to women are often missing: good visibility, space to seek refuge in an emergency, and constant lighting.
a survey conducted by a newspaper Time April 2025 revealed that 74% of male respondents said they felt safe in public places, compared to only 56% of women – despite an overall decline in crime rates in Germany.
Digital hate speech against women is on the rise
One of the ten demands in the open letter is to provide women with greater protections against sexism and racism online.
As a young local politician, Hibba Kaussar experiences this firsthand on a daily basis.
“I experience racism online every day. I constantly receive messages where people insult me and make racist or sexist comments.”
“Why does Instagram allow people I block to create new accounts and continue their hate speech?” Kausar asks. “This is something that both politicians and the tech companies themselves need to address.”
The most dangerous place for a woman is her home
Judith Rahner told DW that she still feels irritated by the chancellor’s recent comments. The executive director of the German Women’s Council says she has been receiving phone calls, emails and social media comments for days from angry women who are venting their anger on Merz. These are women who have long been fighting for the German authorities to do more to tackle domestic violence and violence in relationships.
“Women’s safety is largely under threat in Germany, especially from domestic violence,” says Rahner. “Violence against women continues to rise, online, on the streets, but especially at home. So where women should feel safest is where they are most at risk.”
Femicide: Germany working on amending murder law
However, Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) has tempered expectations that the criminal law will be amended in the near future to make it possible to more severely punish femicide, i.e. the murder of a woman because of her gender.
Nevertheless, the current government has vowed to improve criminal law protections for women.
“Our state must do more to prevent femicide,” Hubig said, when he introduced his proposal for the introduction of electronic ankle tags in the Protection Against Violence Act.
This Act, introduced in 2001, enables family courts to issue civil protection orders to threatened persons (usually women) to protect them from being attacked again by their attacker. If the offender violates such prohibition, he faces imprisonment of up to two years or a fine.
In the future, in high-risk cases, additional preventive protection will be required, requiring the individual to wear a GPS transmitter on his ankle, which will alert victims and the police if he approaches the person he previously attacked.
This is a long-awaited and important step forward, Rahner says, citing Spain as a role model, where electronic ankle bracelets were introduced in 2009.
Activists argue that more counseling centers are needed, and above all, local authorities need more financial resources to equip women’s shelters.
Adequate funding for women’s shelters and safe houses is a key demand in the open letter to Chancellor Merz. There are only 400 women’s shelters and safe homes in Germany, with space for only 7,000 women. Many facilities are hopelessly overcrowded.
However, the Istanbul Convention to combat violence against women estimates that three times as many places are needed as in Germany. Judith Rahner says women seeking protection often have to travel great distances to seek asylum.
Rahner says, “The most absurd thing is that many women have to pay to stay in a women’s shelter. So they first experience violence from their partner, then manage to escape their home, seek safety in a women’s shelter and finally they are presented with the bill for their own accommodation. I think this really symbolizes the state of violence protection for women in Germany.”
Violence Assistance Act: A first step toward greater protections for women
In early 2025, Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Greens and the SPD pushed the Violence Assistance Act through parliament, which guarantees free legal counsel and protection to women affected by violence from 2032.
Judith Rahner considers this a milestone. He concluded, “I hope that the debate will now take place seriously and that Chancellor Merz will also listen to the daughters.”
This article has been translated from German.