Many women refugees find it difficult to integrate in Germany because they cannot read or write. The German government offers courses to empower these women to change their often isolated lives, but how successful are they?
Habiba from Afghanistan has a secret. She can’t write her name. Payman can also barely read and write. She went to school for two years before becoming a hairdresser and housewife.
Habiba and Payman are among the many illiterate women refugees who have a particularly hard time integrating into life in Germany. They told their stories to Deutsche Welle's Focus on Europe program.
Without the ability to read and write, they can’t do any of the things necessary to join society – opening a bank account, finding a place to live, even understanding what’s going on around them.
Payman is a 23-year-old Iraqi Kurd. She married at 14. Now she and her husband and three school-age children live in a refugee hostel in the German city of Cologne, where they mainly keep to themselves.
“I don’t have any German friends. I only know one person from Spain. I’d like to make German friends but I’ve never had the chance,” Payman says.
Habiba also has little contact with Germans. She’s only got to know one German at the refugee hostel.
“We’ve been friends with her for a year. When we have problems or get letters from the authorities, she helps us,” Habiba says.
Kept out of school
In the past five years, more than half a million women have arrived in Germany from crisis zones, where they may have received no formal education because of conditions of war or political unrest.
