text: It's not important that the perpetrators of sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve were reportedly from the "Arab or North African area," what's important is that they were men, according to the author of an op-ed published this week by the Independent.
  
  "We should look to the gender of the Cologne attackers — not their race," an article penned by Edward Simmons read. "Those who have never fought for women's rights will opportunistically use women's sexual trauma as the vehicle for their xenophobia, another brick for their much-loved border."
  
  In late December, as revelers gathered in Germany's fourth-largest city to ring in the New Year, a group of about 1,000 men reportedly from the "Arab or North African area" stormed the crowd, throwing lit fireworks at people, fighting the police and sexually assaulting dozens of women.
  
  A police report dated Jan. 4 described "scenes in Cologne of crying women fleeing sexual molestation from crowds of men, passersby trying to rescue young girls from being raped, and groups of intoxicated men throwing bottles and fireworks at a police force no longer in control of the situation," according to the Wall Street Journal.
  
  A senior police official familiar with the chaos that evening said in the report, "Women alone or with others were literally running the gantlet through crowds of heavily drunk men, in a way that defies description."
  
  The document went on to say that the attackers appeared to be "men with migration background."
  
  Approximately 121 complaints related to the New Years Eve attack had been filed in Cologne by Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that roughly 75 percent of those reports involved sexual assault.
  
  The attacks come after German Prime Minister Angela Merkel worked last year to open the country's borders to more than one million immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan fleeing the Islamic State and the Syrian Civil War.
  
  As of Thursday, as police in Cologne continued to search for the assailants, it was unclear whether the perpetrators were recently arrived immigrants.
  
  Police did say, however, that they had identified at least 16 suspects who were mainly of "North African" origin.
  
  But it doesn't matter where the suspects may or may not have come from, the Independent op-ed argued. What matters is that the alleged attackers were men.
  
  "There is a common thread throughout these assaults and the vast majority of violence against women throughout the world. The perpetrators are men," Simmons wrote, taking aim at critics of Germany's immigration policies.
  
  "The anti-migrant lobby won't compel their rightful disgust at Cologne's events into combating the swinging cuts to domestic and sexual violence charities throughout the UK," he added. "They aren't even likely to push for the most reliable solution to events like Cologne: a robust program of sexual and emotional education that comprehensively deals with rape, sexual assault and gender imbalance."
  
  Instead, he wrote, "the Right" will likely waste its time trying to close the country's borders, while dealing with the issue of vetting its massive immigration population.
  
  "Those who have never fought for women's rights will opportunistically use women's sexual trauma as the vehicle for their xenophobia, another brick for their much-loved border," he concluded.
  
  "Cologne should act as a wake up call to attack the gender violence that pervades all societies. It must not become a battle cry for those who oppose that idea that maybe, just maybe, we have a moral duty to those fleeing from genocide, famine and civil war.
  
  He's not alone in suggesting that focusing on mass immigration is the wrong way to respond to the New Years Eve attacks. Several commentators and newsrooms, including Vice and others, have published similar arguments.