And how would you as e.g a person in Iran, stay and fight to stop the bombing yourself? There is no ground war in Iran, there is no need for soldiers to join the military and fight. Two governments are playing at war and people are dying because of it. How would you, as a teacher in Afghanistan, stay and fight the Taliban? How would you, as an accountant in Ethiopia, avoid being killed extrajudicially? It isn’t always as simple as picking up a gun and fighting the baddies.
The demographic of the around 117 million displaced people around the world, regardless of refugee status is 40% children, the split between men and women is less certain as figures are collected differently in different regions. But what is determined is the M/F split of refugees is roughly 50/50, which makes sense, if children are refugees, then the chances are their mothers are too.
Less than 1% of that 117 million are currently asylum seekers in a third country. (Around 9 million). There are no figures I have found yet which break that down by sex, but I’d put money on it being skewed more towards men than women. Of course it is, for the reasons I mentioned previously. Leaving the relative safety (and I use that word advisedly) of a refugee camp to make the perilous journey isn’t something you do with the youngest and most vulnerable members of your family.
Of that 9 million, a vanishingly low percentage show up on our shores, again that makes sense. If you can make a life in mainland Europe, you would. And many many more do. Because the last part of the journey requires giving money you barely have to a dodgy bloke with a boat he isn’t getting on, wearing a life jacket made of nothing more than packing polystyrene, doesn’t it make absolute sense that largely that will largely NOT be done by women and children?