GENEVA: Women and children among the migrants and refugees moving through Europe face a high risk of violence and sexual abuse, the UN warned Friday, calling on European countries to do more to protect them.

The UN refugee agency said more than a third of the more than 600,000 migrants and refugees who have arrived in Europe this year are women and children, warning they are “particularly subject to abuse.”

“We are raising the alarm bell,” spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said, pointing to numerous testimonies about sexual violence at overcrowded reception sites, for instance on the Greek island of Lesbos where reception centres are buckling under the arrivals of thousands of people daily. Such reception centres often “lack adequate lighting and separated spaces for single women and families with children,” she pointed out.

Many migrants and refugees are also forced to camp out in the open, in parks and along roadsides, or in train stations, where women and children are also especially vulnerable to abuse, she said.

Perhaps most worryingly, she warned, some children appeared to be engaging in “survivor sex” to pay smugglers to continue their journey, either because they have run out of money, or because they have been robbed en route.