Wednesday, September 03, 2025
No evidence to support claims linking sexual violence with refugees
The Independent reports that leading female politicians, campaigners and cultural figures have signed an open letter criticising attempts from the right to link sexual violence in Britain to the arrival of asylum seekers.
The paper says that the letter - signed by musicians Paloma Faith, Charlotte Church and Anoushka Shankar, as well as Labour, Green and independent MPs including Kim Johnson, Ellie Chowns, Diane Abbott and Zarah Sultana – says they “reject the far right’s racist lies about ‘protecting’ women and girls”:
“They are not defenders of women – they exploit violence against women to fuel hate and division,” reads the letter, coordinated by Stand Up to Racism and titled ‘Women Against the Far Right’.
The letter, seen by The Guardian, warns: “Violence against women and girls is a serious and urgent issue. But it will never be solved by the likes of Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick targeting refugees, Muslims and migrants.
“There is no evidence that people seeking refuge are more likely to commit acts of sexual violence. Many are themselves survivors of violence, war, and persecution. Blaming them distracts from tackling the deep-rooted causes of abuse and from holding those truly responsible to account.”
It also accuses the far right of spreading misinformation to whip up protests and unrest outside hotels housing asylum seekers, which include women and children. The letter argues that this does nothing to make women in Britain feel safer.
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Reform UK leader Mr Farage has repeatedly tried to link illegal immigration with levels of violence against women and girls, claiming that an “Afghan male has a 22 times more likely chance of being convicted of rape than somebody born in this country”.
In fact as the Guardian reported a few years ago, the majority of child sexual abuse gangs are made up of white men under the age of 30.
According to an official report, which covers England, Scotland and Wales and summarises a range of studies on the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE), also known as grooming gangs, there is not enough evidence to conclude that child sexual abuse gangs were disproportionately made up of Asian offenders.
It said: “Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white:
Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor in the north-west, who brought prosecutions over the Rochdale grooming gangs, welcomed the report. “It confirms that white men remain the most common offenders, which is something rarely mentioned by rightwing commentators,” he said.
“However, it is not shy in reflecting that south Asian and British Pakistani men are disproportionately found in high-profile cases.
“The danger is that by focusing entirely on the ethnicity of the offender, we miss the bigger picture, which is how the unheard, the left-behind women and girls, are invariably the victims. That’s where the government’s attention and action should be primarily focused.”
The point is that this is not clear cut by any stretch of the imagination, despite the rhetoric being utilised by Farage, Jenrick and their acolytes, misleading rhetoric that has been used to fuel protests and hatred.
Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor in the north-west, who brought prosecutions over the Rochdale grooming gangs, welcomed the report. “It confirms that white men remain the most common offenders, which is something rarely mentioned by rightwing commentators,” he said.
“However, it is not shy in reflecting that south Asian and British Pakistani men are disproportionately found in high-profile cases.
“The danger is that by focusing entirely on the ethnicity of the offender, we miss the bigger picture, which is how the unheard, the left-behind women and girls, are invariably the victims. That’s where the government’s attention and action should be primarily focused.”
The point is that this is not clear cut by any stretch of the imagination, despite the rhetoric being utilised by Farage, Jenrick and their acolytes, misleading rhetoric that has been used to fuel protests and hatred.
