The mayor of Cologne on Wednesday offered some poorly received advice to female residents of her city after a wave of New Year's Eve attacks that shocked Germany.
"There's always the possibility of keeping a certain distance of more than an arm's length - that is to say to make sure yourself you don't look to be too close to people who are not known to you, and to whom you don't have a trusting relationship," Henriette Reker said, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper .
Her advice, offered in response to a question about what women in Cologne can do to protect themselves, came during a news conference at which Reker issued her first public comments over reports from about 90 women alleging sexual harassment and thefts on New Year's Eve.
Reker's "arm's length" comment was just one piece of a larger "code of conduct" proposed for young women and girls that the mayor said would soon be available online, according to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle .