Sex for a place to sleep: the bitter reality of female homelessness

Across Europe women account for a large part the homeless population, but in Luxembourg the official share is much smaller. That is not because there are fewer but because more and more are falling through the cracks of the country’s homelessness census.

In Germany and France up to 40% of homeless people are women. In Luxembourg that figure stands at just 22% according to the most recent census of homeless people. When asked by the Luxemburger Wort, the ministry for family, which is responsible for the country’s homeless population, stated that it had no scientific explanation as to why the rate was higher abroad.

There is no precise data as to why women in Luxembourg lose their homes in the first place, as the answers in the ministry’s census reports are not broken down by gender. However, a large number of those affected cite “family conflicts” as one of the main reasons for their situation. It is known from neighbouring Germany that one of the most common reasons for female homelessness is violence in the partnership or family.

Too few places for too many victims

If women in Luxembourg are victims of domestic violence, there are places they can turn to. However, it is not usually possible to find a place to sleep there immediately, says Ana Pinto, president of the victims’ organisation “La voix des survivant(e)s”. “They have nowhere to go. The waiting list for the women’s shelters is extremely long,” she says. As of August 2025, 64 people were waiting for a place.

Even the emergency room, which is reserved for people in acute mortal danger in facilities such as the “Fraenhaus”, is sometimes occupied. “Luxembourg urgently needs more structures where women affected by violence can be accommodated directly,” Pinto says. It can take a long time for a place to become available in these centres and during this time, the women have no permanent place to stay.

Ana Pinto is calling for more low-threshold overnight accommodation for women affected by violence © Photo credit: Marc Wilwert/LW-Archiv

The ministry for equality and diversity, which is responsible for the care of women affected by violence, says that in emergencies it is possible to accommodate victims in a hotel for a short time at the ministry’s expense. The women’s shelters decide whether an emergency exists. They base their decision on factors such as the vulnerability of the victim, their assessment of the situation, their social situation and the exact threat situation.

However, Fondation Pro Familia emphasises that it is by no means the case that all women on the waiting list are simply placed in a hotel.

The ministry for gender equality states that it is aware that more accommodation is needed for women affected by violence. They are in close contact with the various women’s shelters and counselling services in order to offer the necessary help. Co-operation in finding uncomplicated and unbureaucratic solutions in emergencies is said to be going well.

Given the high cost of housing, it is difficult for women in extreme situations to find their own home at short notice. Romira Da Cruz Pires from Fraenhaus confirms that people who receive the minimum wage and are single parents in particular have “extreme” difficulties finding anything at all – even in the long term. “Landlords on the private market don’t want single mothers [on benefits]. That’s why many of the women stay with us for a very long time, sometimes a year and a half,” she says. In addition, the waiting times for social housing of a suitable size are long.

Helplessness leads to sexual exploitation

The group “Les travailleurs sociaux et professionnels de la santé intervenant dans le domaine de la grande précarité au Luxembourg” (TSPS for short) has taken a critical stance on the treatment of homeless people in Luxembourg in recent years. It is made up of social workers and healthcare professionals who wish to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs.

Women tend not to end up homeless but rather “without a home”, meaning they find temporary accommodation with friends, acquaintances or in shacks. According to TSPS, this “invisibility” is an attempt by women to protect themselves from violence and stigmatisation.

To avoid having to sleep on the street, they will move in with strangers, sleep on the couch if necessary. However, this, too, often comes at a price. “Women have less difficulty finding a place to stay than men because they can sometimes offer sexual services in exchange for a place to sleep,” reports a social worker who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job.

She says, “Women are clearly the ones who are most at risk when they are on the street. That’s where they experience rape, pimping and other forms of violence.”

No statistics exist in Luxembourg as to how often women without a home become victims of sexual offences.

Background to the article

In order to be able to adapt the measures in the fight against homelessness in a targeted manner, the ministry for family, solidarity, coexistence and accommodation of refugees has counted and interviewed homeless people twice a year since 2022. People who have to sleep in public spaces and emergency sleeping centres are considered homeless. People without a home, on the other hand, are those who are temporarily housed in facilities or accommodated by third parties.

During the counts, social workers roam the streets of Luxembourg City, Esch-sur-Alzette and the “Wanteraktioun” site between 17:00 and midnight on a fixed date. There, they approach anyone they think might be affected. The most recent count recorded 361 homeless and 68 people without a home – a snapshot.

However, the social sector has criticised the methodology of the census. For this story, the Luxemburger Wort spoke to more than 13 actors, groups and organisations from the social sector over a period of several weeks.

Censuses and support services geared towards men?

TSPS emphasise that mixed-gender shelters such as the “Wanteraktion” are not a suitable place for vulnerable people to spend the night due to the risk of sexual assault. Women are also aware of this, which is why they avoid these spaces. However, there is only one emergency shelter in Luxembourg that is reserved exclusively for women: the Night Watch for Women, which is run by Hëllef um Terrain (HUT). It confirms that all ten beds are always occupied and that there is a waiting list. The facility is only aimed at women without children and prioritises those who are old or ill.

The current CSV-DP government has declared war on all forms of homelessness. However, the ministry for family only classes as homeless people in “Ethos” categories 1 to 3, a typology developed by the European Federation of National Associations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA). It serves as a guideline for the ministry and Inter-Actions, a non-profit organisation from the social sector, when counting people. According to “Ethos”, categories 4 to 7 are also forms of homeless, but are not included in Luxembourg’s official counts.

Category 4 is made up as follows: “People living in women’s shelters”, so “women and their children who have left their homes due to domestic violence and are accommodated in a shelter for the short to medium term”. When asked by the Wort, the ministry explained that women’s shelters were excluded from the counts “because they do not fall into the [first three] ‘Ethos’ categories mentioned.”

The ministry said that it faces a major challenge when recording this target group. “These people are more likely to be recorded by specialised services that are visited by those affected in order to seek help,” it said. However, women who are staying illegally in the Grand Duchy are generally unable to utilise these services.

The ministry claims to be particularly sensitised to the needs of women. There are a number of programmes that have been designed with the vulnerability of women in mind. The homelessness census is merely intended to raise awareness of the problem and improve the data situation. However, unlike homeless people, it is difficult to review people without a home, which is why they were explicitly not “targeted” in the counts.

TSPS are certain that the way in which homeless and people without a home are counted in Luxembourg fails to recognise the reality of the lives of the women concerned. This in turn prevents appropriate support measures from being developed due to a “glaring lack of data”.

Meanwhile, Bernard Thill from Médécins du Monde estimates that around 270 women in Luxembourg could be affected by one kind or another of homelessness.

Only 75 of them were last counted by the ministry for family affairs.

(This story was first published by the Wort. Machine translated, with editing and adaptation by Yannick Hansen.)