Shabana Mahmood claims most women coming on small boats have been raped.

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/04/women-small-boats-raped-shabana-mahmood-asylum-migration

Sadly, I’m not at all surprised by this story. It’s strangely worded though.

“You can almost guarantee that every woman that’s in the north of France has probably been raped along the journey.”

I think she’s probably right.

Then there are the women and children who’ve mysteriously “died” on board.

I would be more surprised if they weren't raped tbh. A group of young men with all sorts of backgrounds and possible criminal pasts and/or mental health issues, in a small, unsupervised space, possibly on a death mission, with likely zero consequences, no woman or child, or vulnerable male, would be safe.

Yes, I agree with her. It's very likely the case unfortunately.

She aso rightly points out that lots of the men and boys are likely to have experienced violence and possibly sexual assults too. And I'm glad to hear her call out the Islamaphobia of the far right balaclava thugs that protest at the ports. She's right they probably would want her deported. To me all of this lends weight to the importance of creating enough safe and legal routes.

What a surprise.....

Those poor women, and pricks of men as usual.

To me all of this lends weight to the importance of creating enough safe and legal routes.

They need to secure the borders and stop the crossings before they open up “safe and legal” routes. If they don’t we will just end up with both.

Well yes, probably. All the more reason to crush the organised crime gangs behind this sort of people smuggling.

This is why the decent men who try to get to the UK leave their wives and kids at home. As with every section of society there are always men (yes, it's always men) who use their strength and power to hurt women in many ways. We need safe routes, at least for women - but are they any safer here when we see what it's happening to these women once they get here (a lovely friend of mine, born here, had her hijab pulled off by a group of men chanting about her going home. She's a paediatric nurse.)

"Secure the borders and stop the crossings" how do you suggest this is done?

So why are we continuing with this?

I think a very large proportion of women who have never set foot on a small boat have been raped. It’s universal, horribly common and of course even more prevalent where women are particularly vulnerable.

Detaining on arrival.
Processing off-shore.
Deporting anyone arriving illegally.
Leaving the ECHR if necessary to achieve the above.
Criminalising anyone facilitating illegal entry including so-called charity workers.
No family reunion at any point for anyone entering illegally.

Yes they have, but these women are extremely vulnerable.

In Ceuta women and unaccompanied children were being predated on by the locals (Spanish) and other migrants. In the very long journey most migrants take they will be extremely vulnerable to rape by the people smugglers, other migrants, random locals (there was a big issue with very young boy refugees in Italy being offered food for sex by local Italian men at one point), migrants recruited by the local police to push back other migrants (the Greeks did this. It does seem to filter for the worst people at the expense of the most vulnerable), and border guards themselves.

Don't forget that when the UK home office rolled out it's homes for Ukrainians scheme there was an influx of lovely British men wanting to offer homes to only young women. And early on reports of German brothels trying to recruit them (this is illegal sex trafficking). Because the routes for Ukrainian women/children were legal and regulated the UK government was able to crack down on this and change the rules on the homes scheme. It was easier for Ukrainian women and children to leave because of this which is why more Ukrainian refugees in the UK are women than other groups of refugees.

The current situation with boat crossings etc is horrendous and puts innocent people at risk while enriching smugglers and illegal gangs. But smugly trying to turn it into a political point along the lines of "see we told you male migrants are all bad people" assumes that all the rapes were committed by migrants. And I bet they weren't. It does provide a good reason for why the people taking this route are more likely to be male (though young boys are also preyed upon enroute. See my earlier point about Italy).

I don't think she was saying that it was their fellow passengers raping women while on the boats, though I suppose that is possible.

It is more likely that during their long journeys before they get to the coast of France they are being passed from one people smuggler to another and are extremely vulnerable to assault and exploitation in the process. You can just imagine how a people smuggler might demand extra payment in kind to get them on to the next stage in the journey...

I am curious about how all of this will help thewomen who have been raped. Or indeed prevent them from being further preyed upon? Particularly detaining female rape victims in a prison type setting isn't conducive to healing. In fact I think they would be incredibly vulnerable to being assaulted by the people recruited to "guard" them given that they would be out of sight (off shore somewhere) with no legal recourse and completely dependent on the people running the centres for everything. This isn't theoretical, even during COVID when people entering the UK were asked to quarantine at hotels there were reports of G4S staff harassing single female women, including acquiring keys to their room and entering without permission. Absolutely terrifying situation to be in as a woman and what you are suggesting is much much worse.https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-57609164 There are worse stories coming out about ICE in America including pregnancies in the child detainment centres. Your "solution" sounds like a predators paradise.

It’s definitely possible that it was the passengers. It’s a dangerous position to be in for a woman, the entire journey.

So, to be clear, when the raped women you refer to in your OP arrive…

You’d like to see them detained, kept from their families, or sent back to the place they fled from?

We could do as Australia does and stop all arrivals at the shore and use humanitarian visas instead.

They get to choose lone women for a special visa.

Probably the passengers but not just the passengers. Also, the women are fleeing their home countries for a reason- a lot of them will have been raped or suffered appalling things and that is why they left in the first place.

What sort of sick culture would take advantage of desperate women? Oh... https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-10780875/Predatory-males-exploiting-Homes-Ukraine-scheme-host-single-women.html

Personally I'd like to see pretty much all the women given help to stay, and most of the men sent back.
I'd also be interested in letting younger children stay, but unaccompanied minors (male) would need to be properly age tested.

The implication is that the traffickers who are the perpetrators, and that the male refugees are also likely to have been sexually abuse. Let's not turn this into an anti-immigrant screed.

The way to reduce this is legal routes, not scapegoating refugees.

It's even referred to in the plot of Casablanca though there it's (sort of) played for laughs. The French official in charge of processing visas for people to leave for America is happy to take "payment in kind" from the women in couples. The people writing the script included Jewish refugees who knew first hand the sorts of things that happened en route.