of the compartments was not a reaction to the Cologne sex attacks, but instead to requests made by customers earlier in December last year, before the assaults took place.

Train operator MRB said it wanted to improve the sense of security among its female passengers

'Implicit tolerance'

The move has received a mixed welcome. Politicians, the public, gender experts and transport associations all have their different views on the matter, with some praising the step and others calling into question the effectiveness of the separate compartments.

Kristina Lunz, campaign adviser to the German branch of UN Women, slammed the measure, saying that "instead of punishing the perpetrators, harassment of women by men was being implicitly tolerated."

"We don't need a women's compartment, just the feeling of safety no matter where we are," shesaid.

The spokesperson for the ecologically oriented transport association Verkehrsclub Deutschland, Simon Hüther, said the compartments were anything but a good idea. "It's completely the wrong direction to take," he told DW. "Separating genders now? That's something from the past, from another century. We can't simply separate off the women."

A Left Party lawmaker in Saxony's state parliament, Maco Böhme, also said the special women's compartments were a "step towards going back to the Middle Ages."

Fears after dark

On board the trains, it was a different story. Most of the people DW spoke to supported the idea, even if many of the passengers occupying the women's compartments had in fact stumbled across the separate cabin by chance. Marked only with a blue sticker showing a drawing of a woman wearing a