A public awareness campaign in Germany has sparked controversy over its portrayal of victims and offenders of harassment in public swimming pools.
The campaign, picturing ethnic Germans as the harassers of immigrants, ignored the fact that nationwide the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) registered 423 sexual assaults in swimming pools in 2024: Almost 65 per cent of the perpetrators were non-German, while many of the rest also had a migrant background.
With the high summer temperatures in Germany, the country has been confronted again with migrant gangs harassing and assaulting people.
Rather than targeting specific profiles, the city of Büren, in North Rhine-Westphalia, chose to take a different approach in its efforts to draw attention to the problem.
In a poster campaign, devised with the input of local counselling groups, ethnic Germans have been depicted harassing migrants.
Ich dachte erst, es sei ein Fake…#Freibad #Büren pic.twitter.com/Ks35atnhwM
— Ralph Stanger (@RalphStanger) July 2, 2025
One poster showed a red-haired white woman harassing a boy with a darker complexion and wooden leg underwater. “Stop, no groping!’, the image stated.
Under the picture, the mascot of the campaign, a turtle called “Tiki”, said: “No one is allowed touch you without your consent. If you feel uncomfortable, you have the right to get help! Say my name: Tiki!”
Another showed a North-African girl being unpleasantly confronted by a blond, light-skinned man in a pool changing room.
She looked at him in horror and covered herself with a towel. Turtle Tiki commented: “Take consideration; if you are in the changing room.”
On social media, many people reacted with disbelief to the campaign.
Critics pointed out that, in reality, many perpetrators of such harassment often came from Arab and African cultures, with problematic views towards women in particular and sometimes also hostile towards Europeans.
The deputy chairman of the German Police Union, Manuel Ostermann, said about a similar campaign in Cologne, where a poster depicted a blond boy groping a dark-skinned girl: “This depiction, in fact, has little to do with reality. Let’s call a spade a spade – it is primarily men from the main countries of asylum origin.”
Ein Bild, das die Ohnmacht oder den Widerwillen der politischen Akteure verdeutlicht.
Wenn man sich schon um politische Korrektheit bemüht, sollte man ebenfalls darauf hinweisen, dass das Bild des blonden Mannes lediglich aus Furcht vor den empörten Rufen von Links entstanden ist… pic.twitter.com/By3yvvV561— Manuel Ostermann (@M_Ostermann) June 29, 2025
Children and young people have been targeted by awareness campaigns regarding sexual violence and attacks.
On June 22, in the Hessian town of Gelnhausen, nine girls aged 11 to 17 were physically harassed by four Syrian men at the local outdoor pool and “touched on the whole body”, according to media reports.
In early July, a lifeguard was beaten up by a group of youths in Hannover, the Apollo News outlet reported.
German outdoor swimming pools are increasingly resembling high-security zones with security and passport controls to counter the increasing violence, news outlet NIUS reported.
