Lone female pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago have spoken of being subjected to “terrifying” sexual harassment in near-deserted areas of rural Spain, Portugal and France.
In interviews with the Guardian, nine women alleged they had experienced harassment while attempting the pilgrimage route over the past five years, with several saying they had feared for their lives.
Seven of the women said they had encountered men in Spain and Portugal who were masturbating or touching themselves, one of whom went on to chase the pilgrim through the countryside.
Another woman said she had fended off unwanted touching and lewd comments from several men, while the ninth woman said a man had pulled up in a van as she walked and urged her to get in. The incidents usually took place as the women were walking alone along remote stretches of the Camino.
Lorena Gaibor, the founder of Camigas, an online forum that has been connecting female pilgrims since 2015, said the reports were shocking but not surprising. “Sexual harassment is endemic on the Camino. It feels very common. Every freaking year we get reports of women experiencing the same things,” she said.
Rosie, 25, said she was walking through a forested route in Portugal earlier this summer when she came across a man with no trousers on who was masturbating as he watched her. The local police did not pick up when she tried to call them.
“It was terrifying,” said Rosie, who asked that her full name not be published. “I just felt completely alone at that point.”
The incident had left her feeling unsafe, making her realise her unique vulnerability as a lone female pilgrim.
“The Camino is so amazing, because it’s so difficult, so physically challenging and so mentally challenging,” she said. “But there is this extra element that female hikers face, this extra huge safety issue, which completely affects your whole ability to face those other challenges or enjoy it in the way that other people do.”
In recent years the popularity of the various pilgrimage routes collectively known as the Camino de Santiago has soared, particularly among women. Last year a record 446,000 people walked the Camino, 53% of them women, according to Pedro Blanco, the Spanish central government’s representative in Galicia. “More than 230,000 women did it last year, and many of them didn’t hesitate to do it on their own,” he recently told reporters.
Marie Albert, a journalist, self-described adventurer and feminist writer, said there was insufficient discussion of the risks that female pilgrims faced. “These routes are said to be safe for women and there’s a taboo around saying anything different,” she said.
In 2019, as Albert walked 435 miles (700km) across northern Spain to reach Santiago de Compostela, she documented a number of aggressions. One man tried to kiss her, and another masturbated in front of her, she said. One man harassed her by text message, and another followed her in the street. At times her aggressors were pilgrims who were walking the same route as her, leaving her panicked that she would again cross paths with them.
Of the nine women who spoke to the Guardian, six reported the incidents to police. In only one case was the perpetrator located and prosecuted.
A handful of incidents along the route have made headlines in recent years. In 2018, a 50-year-old Venezuelan woman was allegedly kidnapped and raped by two men as she walked through north-western Spain. Last year Spanish police arrested a 48-year-old man accused of holding a 24-year-old German pilgrim against her will in his home and sexually assaulting her. In 2019, police in Portugal arrested a 78-year-old man who was accused of kidnapping and attempting to rape a pilgrim from Germany.
Concerns over female pilgrims’ safety burst into public view in 2015 after the American pilgrim Denise Thiem went missing in a rural area of León province, Spain. Her disappearance prompted several pilgrims to come forward with their own stories of being threatened or harassed, before a court sentenced a Spanish man in 2017 to 23 years in prison for Thiem’s murder.
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In 2021 the Spanish government launched a safety campaign that has since expanded to 1,600 points across Galicia where female pilgrims can access information in several languages on how to contact emergency services.
Johnnie Walker, one of the admins behind the Camino de Santiago All Routes Group, a social media forum that counts more than 450,000 members, said there had long been frustration over the lack of statistics, even as efforts to combat these incidents had been stepped up.
“As the number of pilgrims has grown, so have reports of men exposing themselves to pilgrims,” he said. “In response the Guardia Civil has stepped up patrols on a number of routes.”
His forum has long advised pilgrims in Spain to download the AlertCops app, which allows pilgrims to contact police directly. “There’s always the balance to be struck between warning women and causing alarm,” he said. “However, a few of us feel that this issue now needs to be addressed more forcibly and coherently across the country.”
Police in Portugal said that since 2023 they had received five reports from pilgrims, all of them related to incidents of exhibitionism. None of the suspects were identified and no arrests were made. Between May and October, police had stepped up patrols along various routes in Portugal in order to better protect pilgrims, they added in a statement.
Police in Spain and France, as well as the interior ministries of those countries, were also approached for comment but did not respond.
When asked whether there was an official tally of pilgrims who had reported incidents of harassment in the past five years, the Spanish central government’s delegation in Galicia said in a statement that it was not aware of any cases of sexual aggression involving female pilgrims.
It pointed to a series of initiatives aimed at protecting pilgrims, including specific police patrols along routes and an established protocol that requires security forces to be dispatched each time a call comes in from a pilgrim.