Nearly all women who try to reach UK in small boats are raped during their journey, home secretary says

Published: 09:00 BST, 5 October 2026 | Updated: 09:04 BST, 5 October 2026

Nearly all women who attempt to reach the UK in small boats from northern France are raped on their journey, according to the home secretary.

In an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast, Shabana Mahmood said sexual abusers would exploit most asylum seekers as long as traffickers continued to decide who came to Britain.

She said: 'We’re 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. 

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

'Some of the men too, they’ve 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.'

About 300 anti-migrant protesters clashed with police on Sunday after dozens of migrants arrived at a historic naval port via small boat using a 'new route' to evade detection.

Flares were set off during the stand-off at a marina in Gosport that lasted into the early hours of Monday morning. 

The Home Office confirmed that 149 migrants were picked up in a mid-Channel rescue operation by the RNLI alongside a French coastguard vessel.

Nearly all women who attempt to reach the UK in small boats from northern France are raped on their journey, according to the home secretary

The migrants were transported by coach to a processing centre in Kent. 

Protesters gathered near Haslar Marina in Gosport where a number of migrants were seen arriving at around 10.15pm - having been transported aboard two RNLI boats late on Sunday evening. 

Demonstrators shouted 'send them back' and 'you're not welcome'. 

The scene marks the second known incident of a landing of a large group of migrants this far west along the south coast in recent years.

Speaking to the former Tory minister Rory Stewart and Tony Blair’s former close adviser Alastair Campbell, Mahmood said the balaclava-wearing protesters shutting down ports and praising her policies should 'sod off'. 

'They’re just troublemakers. You know, they’d kill me in a minute if they could, and they’d definitely kick me out of my own country,' she said.

'So let’s just be really clear about who and what they are. They don’t think I’m a true Brit and they hate the fact that I’m a Muslim.' 

She added that she considered herself part of the 'pro-Palestine cause' and said she felt 'very uncomfortable' over the arrests of activists opposing the ban imposed on Palestine Action.

More than 82 people were arrested by Merseyside police outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last Monday on suspicion of wearing or carrying articles supporting a proscribed organisation.

In a demonstration organised by Defend Our Juries, scores of people sat outside the conference centre, with several holding handmade banners saying they supported the banned group Palestine Action. 

A Merseyside police spokesperson said the force respected everyone's rights to protest lawfully while also aiming to keep the peace and ensure public safety.

The force said it made 'detailed and co-ordinated plans ahead of such events to ensure it can apply this consistently, fairly and proportionately'.

The spokesperson said not everyone present at the demonstration had been committing a criminal offence.

Mahmood said: 'For those of us who have been in the pro-Palestinian cause all of our lives, these are people – sometimes you’ll know who they are, you know, you’ve been on the marches with them – it feels very uncomfortable to see them falling foul of section 13 of the Terrorism Act.'

However, she defended enforcing the ban on the group, regardless of her own views: 'You’ve got to be able to apply your principles, even when it’s uncomfortable for you, because you’re going to really want to apply them when it’s something you, you know, with your whole heart, are feeling very passionately about.'