Guatemalan trans woman says she was raped in mens' wing of Danish asylum seekers campby Christopher Brocklebank
17 August 2012, 4:40pm
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/08/17/guatemalan-trans-woman-says-she-was-raped-in-mens-wing-of-danish-asylum-seekers-camp/A young Guatemalan trans woman who sought asylum in Denmark says that on her arrival she was placed in the men's wing of an asylum seeker's camp and gang raped by several men who forced their way into her room.
The woman, Fernanda, was placed in the male section of Sandholm - a former barracks converted into a camp for asylum seekers – because under Danish law she is classed as a man.
Speaking to the Danish paper Politiken, Fernanda said: "I was really scared. I was new to this country. I came from a foreign country and from a terrifying background, and I faced daunting prospects here in Denmark, so I said nothing."
Fernanda said she fled Sandholm – which is half an hour's drive from Copenhagen – that same night: "I didn't go to the Red Cross and report it. It was them who put me there. Why should I trust people who hadn't even bothered to listen and who had put me in that situation?
"I didn't want special treatment but I do have special needs because of who I am."
She also said the hormone treatments she had been taking since the age of 14 were suspended – and that over a year passed before she again received any.
