Thank you both for your advice. I see that you are planning to walk the
Camino Frances in the future. I live in a large city in Europe. I also live part of the time in a "really safe" rural area elsewhere in Europe. I have travelled a lot all over the world. I have walked about 1500 km so far on the chemin de St Jacques/Camino Francés. There was an incident once in France on a chemin de St Jacques (French name for "Camino") when I was already pretty far away from home and in a foreign country (and where I speak the language quite well, btw). I don't want to dwell on it, nothing happened to me in the end. But it made me feel sufficiently uneasy that I eventually gave up my project of walking all the way to the Pyrenees all by myself and it was years later that I found the confidence to pick it up again.
The point is that I hardly ever mention it, I don't want to frighten others who think of going on a St James' pilgrimage, in fact I think I only mentioned it to a few other women who had already walked (or cycled) to Santiago de Compostela or to whom I explained why I had stopped; some of them eventually joined me for part of the way later. Maybe others are equally mute and speak about such incidences only in a particular context and when others report their experience.
Another point: whether it happens elsewhere in the world, is not so relevant to me. For me, it is useful to know that it may happen on the Camino Francés where I am planning to go again some time in the future and it helps me to prepare for it and hopefully deal with it then and there should I find myself in such a situation. It helps me to learn that there are dedicated phone numbers for pilgrims or what the local police is called and how these incidents are dealt with there etc. I find that really useful to know and this kind of information comes up when female pilgrims report their experience and how they dealt with it.