ON A recent evening Kamil Gerecci, a former politician in the southern city of Gaziantep, stopped at a traffic light in the centre of town. “Within seconds a young girl covered in black from head to toe leapt into my car, gazed at me seductively, spoke in Arabic and stroked my hand,” recalled Mr Gerecci. “The poor child was a Syrian prostitute, I pushed her out.”

A few weeks earlier in the neighbouring town of Nizip, a Turkish army-vehicle pulled up by a young woman as she walked near an open field. “The man confiscated my ID and forced me to have sex with him and his friends for 21 days,” said the 22-year-old Syrian woman.

Her ordeal risks being repeated as thousands of Syrian refugees continue to flock to Turkey, a combination of war and local violence that was the subject of a conference in London last week (see article). “Allegations of abuse of women refugees and of girls being forced to prostitute themselves are persistent,” confirmed Rajaa Altalli, a Syrian women’s activist.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey is estimated at nearly 1m and is likely to rise to 1.4m by the end of this year. Women and children make up 75% and those under 18 account for 50% of them, according to the UN. In the town of Kilis, Syrians now outnumber locals. Syrian restaurants are a common sight. So too are Syrians who beg, collect rubbish and shine shoes.

Around one-third of the Syrians live in some 22 camps that are scattered mainly along Turkey’s 900km (560-mile) border with Syria. Yet a steady trickle of camp officials have started blowing the whistle on what one described as “rampant” sexual exploitation of women refugees. Orphaned girls and war widows without male relatives to protect them are among the most vulnerable targets.

The Turkish authorities were stirred into action after the 22-year-old woman’s plight became news. A probe was launched and the woman was moved to a different camp. “We take such matters extremely seriously, we have zero tolerance for abuse,” said a Turkish official.

Many of these crimes occur outside the camps and go unreported because many women fear that if their stories are revealed male relatives might kill them to “cleanse the family honour”, say Ms Altalli. Their tormentors know this and use it against them. And so the women “remain silent and continue to submit”.

Children are being exploited, too. Mazlumder, a respected Islamic advocacy group, has chronicled the plight of Syrian child brides, “marketed to older men”, based on face-to-face interviews with 72 Syrian women. Syrian brides have become “a profitable business”, with agents fetching a commission of up to 5,000 liras ($2,400) per head, Mazlumder noted.

Despite their many trials, most Syrians say they feel welcome in Turkey. And for many, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is bent on toppling the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, remains a hero. But their welcome may be wearing thin. The government has spent $3 billion on the Syrian refugees so far and says it can no longer shoulder this burden alone. The International Crisis Group, a think-tank, observed in a recent report that in Gaziantep, hospitality was turning into hostility. Many locals believe that crime was rising because of the Syrians. “Mercy has its limit,” one said.