{"id":792036,"date":"2026-10-04T21:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T21:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792036\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T21:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T21:22:11","slug":"nearly-all-women-arriving-on-small-boats-have-been-raped-says-shabana-mahmood-immigration-and-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792036\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly all women arriving on small boats have been raped, says Shabana Mahmood | Immigration and asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly all women who try to reach the UK in small boats from northern France have been raped on their journey, Shabana Mahmood<\/a> has claimed.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast, the home secretary said far-right, balaclava-wearing activists would \u201ckill\u201d or \u201ckick me out of my own country\u201d if they took power.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the former Tory minister Rory Stewart and Tony Blair\u2019s former close adviser Alastair Campbell, she said sexual abusers would exploit most asylum seekers as long as traffickers continued to decide who came to the UK.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cWe\u2019re not in control of this border. The sifting of the people that end up in the north of France and are about to get on a dinghy is done by criminal gangs who are also, by the way, people traffickers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can almost guarantee that every woman that\u2019s in the north of France has probably been raped along the journey. Some of the men too, they\u2019ve certainly been abused and threatened. That is not the model that should decide whether somebody gets to come to the UK, make this their place of sanctuary and ultimately become one of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shabana Mahmood said she was \u2018very uncomfortable\u2019 about the arrests of 82 people at the Labour conference for displaying articles in support of Palestine Action. Photograph: Martin Pope\/Sopa Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Asked by Campbell about balaclava-wearing protesters shutting down ports and praising her policies, she said they should \u201csod off\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThey\u2019re just troublemakers. You know, they\u2019d kill me in a minute if they could, and they\u2019d definitely kick me out of my own country. So let\u2019s just be really clear about who and what they are. They don\u2019t think I\u2019m a true Brit and they hate the fact that I\u2019m a Muslim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahmood also said she considered herself \u201cpart of the pro-Palestinian cause\u201d and felt \u201cvery uncomfortable\u201d over the arrests of activists opposing the ban imposed on Palestine Action.<\/p>\n

Merseyside police arrested 82 people on Monday at the Labour<\/a> party conference on suspicion of wearing or carrying articles supporting a proscribed organisation.<\/p>\n

In a protest organised by Defend Our Juries, scores of people sat outside the conference centre in Liverpool, many holding handmade banners saying they supported Palestine Action.<\/p>\n

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Shabana Mahmood said far-right thugs \u2018would kill me in a minute if they could\u2019. Photograph: Peter Byrne\/PA<\/p>\n

Mahmood said: \u201cFor those of us who have been in the pro-Palestinian cause all of our lives, these are people \u2013 sometimes you\u2019ll know who they are, you know, you\u2019ve been on the marches with them \u2013 it feels very uncomfortable to see them falling foul of section 13 of the Terrorism Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she defended enforcing the ban, regardless of her views: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to apply your principles, even when it\u2019s uncomfortable for you, because you\u2019re going to really want to apply them when it\u2019s something you, you know, with your whole heart, are feeling very passionately about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities were preparing on Sunday for the arrival of a migrant dinghy heading for the south coast. The boat was being shadowed by French coastguard and rescue vessels and moving toward the Channel boundary line, according to ship tracking data.<\/p>\n

It appeared to have set off from near the Utah Beach area of Normandy on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Caroline Dinenage, the Conservative MP for Gosport in Hampshire, said there was \u201cnothing to suggest\u201d the boat would land on the county\u2019s coast but police were \u201cmaking preparations should that situation change\u201d.<\/p>\n

A government spokesperson said: \u201cThe Border Security Command works around the clock to monitor the Channel and protect our border. It is vital we continue to detain, check and process every small boat arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imran Hussain, a director at the Refugee Council, welcomed the home secretary\u2019s acknowledgment of widespread sexual violence, but questioned why the government had closed safe and legal routes which could help asylum seekers avoid falling into the hands of predators.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know from our services that women and girls fleeing war and persecution face sexual violence both in the conflicts they have escaped and on the journeys they are forced to make in search of safety,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why in welcoming the government\u2019s announcement last week of new safe routes we called for them not to be limited to a few hundred people. Last year the government closed family reunion, the safe route for refugees which overwhelmingly benefits women and children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is entirely right to talk about the dangers women face on these journeys but we should not be closing the safe routes that could keep them out of harm\u2019s way. Protecting women means more safe routes, not fewer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly all women who try to reach the UK in small boats from northern France have been raped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-792036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}