In a press conference in the afternoon of 5 January 2016, Cologne's mayor Henriette Reker (nonpartisan politician) – who herself had been attacked with a knife and gravely wounded 2½ months earlier – after being asked how women could protect themselves from assaults like those on New Year's Eve, answered that women should keep "an arm's length distance" from people with whom they don't know well.
This drew outrage not only on social media, but even from the government of the Netherlands, suggesting that Reker had blamed the victims with her remark.
In a press conference in the afternoon of 5 January 2016, Cologne's mayor Henriette Reker (nonpartisan politician) – who herself had been attacked with a knife and gravely wounded 2½ months earlier – after being asked how women could protect themselves from assaults like those on New Year's Eve, answered that women should keep "an arm's length distance" from people with whom they don't know well. This drew outrage not only on social media, but even from the government of the Netherlands, suggesting that Reker had blamed the victims with her remark.
2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany