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

[Signalbox]

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.”

Good luck with stopping people voting. Perhaps you’ll clamp down on that. Either way you sound totally suited to that so enjoy!

It isn't about acknowledge the general level of risk women face, it's about misdirecting the blame for this to their fellow travellers rather than the traffickers.

The implication of the anti-refugee position is that refugees are more likely to commit rape, which is not true - in fact the men are likely to have been sexually abused, too.

Safe and legal routes reduce the risk to women.

And well done for shoehorning some transphobia in there to spice up the bigotry.

Aside from Afghanistan, the boat migrants are not eligible for visas so safe and legal routes are not the answer.

In other shocking news, the sky is blue.

I can only imagine that the women (and many young girls and boys), are subjected to sexual abuse and rape by both traffickers and fellow passengers, and that the men are abused and threatened.

Sweden invaded, or attempted invasion, of Poland, Germany, Russia and Denmark and in the 18C. All countries, and all nations' boundaries and borders are founded in struggle and conflict.

Raped by who? Surely not by those nice doctors and academics popping over on the small boats?

They went much further afield. Just think of where the names of weekdays come from; Tuesday through to Friday are all derived from Scandinavian gods...

No, by the traffickers. Read what Mahmood said.

The Irish state has not ever invaded or pillaged anywhere, but Irish individuals and clans certainly have. Irish raiders frequently raided coastal England, Scotland and Wales, sometimes creating settlements and spreading Irish culture and language.

The Fenians also launched an invasion of Canada in an attempt to grab land and influence after the American civil war; and whilst Ireland was a subject nation at home, Irish soldiers, missionaries, settlers, and administrators played major roles in colonizing, governing, and building territories abroad within the British imperial system.

Wasn't St Patrick kidnapped as a child from northern England/Scotland by Irish raiders and taken back to Ireland as a slave? After his escape - he returned to Ireland many years later in order to convert the Irish to Christianity.

Yes - not providing safe and legal routes harms women.

Yes, Vikings, but the above inavsions were by the more recent Swedish state.

Many of these women are coming from countries and cultures in which sexual abuse is endemic, and even sanctioned by the state - so, of course, many of the men onboard the dinghies are implicitly involved, and responsible, for their crimes.

It's the exact opposite. You don't need a visa to get refugee status. What used to happen is that anyone could apply for asylum in any British embassy or consulate.

Under the refugee treaty, breaking civil law to enter a country, by whatever means, is not a bar to claiming refugee status. So you can either encourage illegal routes and harm to asylum seekers by blocking these paths, or reopen them. So safe and legal routes are literally the answer.

It also means that you don't get as many asylum seekers waiting for any answer in the UK - they stay in the country where they applied to the embassy while awaiting the result.

The reason there are small boats is simply because they think that providing sage and legal routes will increase the number of claims by making it hard for asylum seekers to claim. The prevalence rape, risk of drowning and the expense are what the system does for this purpose. It's inhuman.

Illegal migration is not the same thing as legal immigration.

All nations, countries, tribes or clans have engaged in acts of colonisation and violence against their neighbours. War and empire is as old as human history.

Our colonisation was the imposition of illegal immigration by us on those countries is the point.

You can do controlled routes that are capped but you’ll still get on shore arrivals if you can’t meet the demand.

It’s unlikely you can meet the demand as the number wanting to he here from each country needing it would be incredibly high.

So you’ll just get both. Unless you opt out of international laws or do as Australia do.

The point is that it’s about men. All men.

Opting out of international laws is never a good step

Exactly. I think some posters don’t understand why the women and children are so vulnerable at every point along the journey.

If that’s not wanted then it’s keep international laws and use the Australian system.

Or Bardella gets in and his party are convinced to take people crossing back.

I see the suggestion here that the refugee men travelling can’t possibly be a danger to anyone, and some sweeping, unfounded claims that they’re far more likely to be victims than perpetrators. And it’s apparently wrong to call that out as agenda driven, or mention that all men are a risk to women. Too bad.

I’m not sure how anyone can be that certain when the crimes are usually not recorded in the country of origin, nor shared. And they certainly aren’t on the way through various countries.

And we see crimes when here too. There’s very little vetting, if any at all.

The reason they’re certain is that they don’t care whether they’re right. They’re only interested in pushing the agenda.

You still think after all the evidence of failure since 2016 that anything Farage says about international "treaties" be trusted? I do hope someone has warned you about wallet inspectors...

I don’t really care what he says but if you want safe controlled routes those are three options below -

If you say no to all of them it’s chaos, deaths at sea and sexual violence on the way.