No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
Britain’s media is ‘weaponising’ violence against women to further racist anti -migrant agenda, according to campaign groups tackling violence against women.
Over 100 women’s rights groups, including Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid last week signed a joint statement condemning the “weaponisation” of violence against women and girls (VAWG) to fuel anti-migrant sentiment.
The groups warn that politicians and media outlets are sharing false statistics suggesting particular groups are primarily responsible for sexual violence, undermining genuine safety concerns.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, they challenged the “dangerous myth” that the greatest risk to women and girls comes from strangers – when most violence occurs in homes by known perpetrators.
Official figures show that 90% of rape perpetrators are known to victims, one in two rapes are by partners/ex-partners, and one woman is murdered by a partner every four days in the UK.
The statement comes as Reform UK and far-right activists have increasingly attempted to present asylum seekers as a threat to women and girls.
These statements have been widely reported in the media and promoted by commentators at national newspapers and on broadcast media.
A meeting hosted by Reform UK’s council leader in the party’s stronghold of Maidstone (Kent) this Tuesday aimed to conflate asylum seekers with violence against women and girls. The meeting was put on with the anti-migration group Women’s Safety Initiative (WSI).
It came just days after it was revealed that a former Reform UK Councillor at KCC is to stand trial at Margate Crown Court for allegedly threatening to kill his wife.
The event was slammed by opposition groups and domestic abuse charities. According to a local source, a spokesperson at the event claimed to attendees that “hundreds of thousands of young women have been murdered by immigrants.”
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
It comes amid a wave of anti-migrant protests outside asylum accommodation across England – with many protesters claiming to be protecting “our” women and girls.
But campaigners working in the sector note that the anti-immigrant riots following the murder of girls in Southport last summer, saw two-fifths of those arrested had histories of domestic abuse – casting major doubt on the claim that the protesters were there to protect women.
Speaking to Byline Times, Sinéad Geoghegan, a spokesperson for the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW Coalition) said the far right had “long exploited” genuine concerns about sexual violence to promote “racist, white supremacist agendas”, with mainstream politicians and newspaper now worryingly adopting similar rhetoric.
Geoghegan said: “We see across society reinforcement in the media and by politicians of the “stranger danger” myth. Obviously that’s not to say women aren’t harmed by strangers. But at the same time, we can’t lose sight that the vast majority of domestic abuse and sexual violence is carried out by someone known to the victim – a partner, ex-partner, or in cases of child sexual abuse, often a family member.”
She criticised parts of the media for “reinforc[ing] harmful narratives” about sexual violence when it comes to asylum seekers.
EVAW Coalition are concerned by a growing media ecosystem – of traditional media, social media, and political rhetoric – which forms a vicious cycle where harmful narratives go viral online, get picked up by newspapers, then feed back into social media through algorithms that profit from extreme content.
Geoghegan points to the widespread media silence on women with “no recourse to public funds” due to their migration status – who are themselves three times more likely to experience violence, yet struggle to access any support.
And she notes the absence of coverage about sexual violence against migrant women themselves: “Lots of women seeking safety in the UK have been victims of gender-based violence, whether that’s in their home country, on their journey, or after they arrive in the UK.”
The Reform and Conservative Politicians Mingling With Neo-Nazis and Fascists at Asylum Hotel Protests
The recent wave of anti-migrant protests are providing a bridge between right-wing elected politicians and extremist groups
They are often “put in harm’s way” by policies designed to limit migration, she says. “That includes being detained in immigration detention centres, or unsafe returns to other countries, or feeling unable to report violence and abuse to the police because of legitimate fear of being treated like an immigration offender rather than supported as a victim,” she said.
EVAW Coalition and the other anti-abuse groups are calling for politicians to hold disinformation-spreaders to account, and reframe migration discourse around human rights rather than allowing racist narratives to persist. In a briefing with journalists this week, the PM’s spokesperson failed to condemn Reform UK’s rhetoric about a supposed ‘invasion’ of asylum seekers.
Geoghegan told Byline Times: “We really want to see the Government holding those who spread this disinformation to account, and changing the framing and rhetoric around migration to one that is rooted in our universal human rights.
“Human rights are essential to ending violence against women and girls, but over the last few years, we have seen threats to roll back our rights, including the ECHR and Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act is central to ending violence against women and girls, and is an essential tool for holding the state to account when it fails victims.”
Specialist support services for survivors are currently facing chronic underfunding and service closures. Reform UK appears to have said nothing about these cuts whilst claiming to care about women’s safety.
Robert Jenrick and the Conservative Party’s Embrace of ‘Blood and Soil’ Nationalism
The British right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics, while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be so worried about, argues Jonathan Portes
Those genuinely concerned about violence against women should focus on funding frontline services, prevention work, addressing court backlogs, and tackling the criminal justice system’s culture of disbelief rather than scapegoating migrants, Geoghegan argues, noting the lack of funding for specialist support services that support victims and survivors by helping women escape abuse, providing holistic support to recover from rape and sexual assault, including counselling, housing and refuge, as well as advocacy through the criminal justice system.
“Many services are having to shut some or all of their services due to chronic underfunding. It’s a really worrying time for many frontline services,” she says.
Ironically, when the End Violence Coalition and other anti-violence campaigners point to the real numbers on mysogynist abuse online, anti-migrant activists who are supposed ‘defenders’ of women “often descend into death and rape threats” according to Geoghegan.
“We know that a lot of these men in the far right have very misogynistic attitudes, and those attitudes underpin and drive and justify violence against women in society”, she says.
“Anyone serious about wanting to help end violence against women would be supporting the campaigns and issues that survivors and frontline services are saying they need help with.”
Back in Kent, Reform UK are expected to table a new motion at the next full council meeting on 18th September linking violence against women and girls to immigrants and refugees. “They seem rattled by the opposition,” a Green Party spokesperson tells Byline Times.
A formal call has also been issued from the local Greens for a Reform cabinet member in Kent, Cllr Peter Osborne, be sacked for ‘misogynistic’ social media posts. According to an investigation by LBC news, they include Osborne posting a photo of the then UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss in 2022, with the caption: “On the bright side, she has got a cracking pair of t**s”.
holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED
While most the rest of the media seems to happy to give the handful of Reform MPs undue prominence, Byline Times is committed to tracking the activities of Nigel Farage’s party when actually in power
Contribute to our #ReformUncovered crowdfunderGot a story? Get in touch in confidence on josiah@bylinetimes.com
Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH
Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
So for more from him…
