BERLIN—A town in western Germany has banned male refugees from a swimming pool after complaints of harassment from female bathers and staff—news that comes as a national poll Friday showed that Germans are becoming increasingly concerned about the country’s ability to integrate the huge numbers of asylum-seekers who arrived last year.
Markus Schnapka, who heads the social affairs department in Bornheim, said other visitors had complained of sexual harassment by men living in a nearby asylum-seeker shelter. He said none of the complaints were on the criminal level and the pool had agreed the ban would end once social workers confirmed the men “got the message.”
Bornheim is a few kilometers (miles) south of Cologne, which saw hundreds of robberies and sexual assaults during New Year’s celebrations that police blamed largely on foreigners. The attacks have stoked a fierce debate in Germany about how to integrate the almost 1.1 million asylum-seekers who arrived last year.
