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.<br />"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 .<br />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.<br />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 .
