UK home secretary warns of sexual abuse on small-boat journeys

UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has claimed that nearly every woman attempting to reach Britain in small boats from northern France has probably been raped during the journey. Speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast, Mahmood said criminal gangs and people traffickers controlled who reached the departure points and exposed asylum seekers to abuse. She said some men had also been abused and threatened.

The home secretary argued that the current system left the government without control of the border because traffickers were effectively deciding who travelled to the United Kingdom. She said sexual abusers would continue to exploit asylum seekers while that arrangement remained in place. Mahmood also criticised far-right activists who oppose her policies, saying they would remove her from the country because she is Muslim.

She described herself as part of the pro-Palestinian cause and said she was uncomfortable about arrests of people protesting the ban on Palestine Action. Merseyside police arrested 82 people at the Labour Party conference on suspicion of wearing or carrying articles supporting a proscribed organisation. Mahmood said she nevertheless supported enforcing the ban, even when doing so conflicted with her personal views.

The Refugee Council’s Imran Hussain welcomed the home secretary’s recognition of sexual violence but questioned the closure of safe routes. He said women and girls fleeing war and persecution faced abuse both in conflicts and during journeys, and called for safe routes to be expanded rather than restricted. A government spokesperson said Border Security Command monitored the Channel and that arrivals had to be detained, checked and processed.

Authorities were also preparing for a small boat moving towards the Channel boundary, although a local MP said there was no indication it would land in Hampshire.