Almost every woman attempting to cross the Channel to the UK in a small boat from northern France is raped during the journey, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has claimed.
Speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast, Mahmood said asylum seekers were vulnerable to sexual abuse while criminal traffickers remained in control of who was able to make the crossing.
“We’re not in control of this border,” she said. “The people who decide which individuals gathered in northern France are allowed to board a dinghy are criminal gangs who are also, of course, people traffickers.”
“You can almost guarantee that every woman in northern France has probably been raped at some point on the journey,” Mahmood added.
She said some men had also been abused or threatened, arguing that criminal gangs should not determine who reaches the UK, seeks sanctuary and eventually becomes part of British society.
The comments came after around 300 anti-migrant protesters clashed with police on Sunday, following the arrival of dozens of migrants at a historic naval port. The group had reportedly used a new route to avoid detection.
Flares were released during the confrontation at a marina in Gosport, where the stand-off continued into the early hours of Monday.
The Home Office said 149 migrants had been brought ashore after being rescued in the middle of the Channel by the RNLI and a French coastguard vessel.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said almost every woman making the small-boat journey to the UK from northern France is raped along the way
They were then taken by coach to a processing facility in Kent.
Protesters assembled near Haslar Marina in Gosport after migrants were seen arriving at about 10.15pm. They had been brought in aboard two RNLI boats late on Sunday.
Some demonstrators shouted “send them back” and “you’re not welcome”.
The arrival was the second known landing of a large migrant group this far west along England’s south coast in recent years.
During the podcast discussion with former Conservative minister Rory Stewart and former Tony Blair adviser Alastair Campbell, Mahmood also condemned balaclava-wearing protesters who have blockaded ports while claiming to support her policies. She told them to “sod off”.
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“They’re just troublemakers,” she said. “They’d kill me in a minute if they could, and they’d certainly drive me out of my own country.”
Mahmood continued: “Let’s be absolutely clear about who they are and what they represent. They don’t regard me as a true Brit, and they hate the fact that I’m Muslim.”
The home secretary also said she identified with the “pro-Palestine cause” and felt “very uncomfortable” about the arrests of activists who opposed the government’s ban on Palestine Action.
More than 82 people were arrested by Merseyside Police outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last Monday. They were held on suspicion of wearing or carrying items expressing support for a proscribed organisation.
The arrests followed a demonstration organised by Defend Our Juries, during which scores of people sat outside the conference centre. Several held handmade signs declaring their support for the banned group Palestine Action.
A Merseyside Police spokesperson said the force respected the right to protest lawfully, while working to preserve order and protect 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.’