The gang rape on a migrant boat

On 16 September, 65 migrants were rescued from the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. Three dead bodies were also recovered. Just eight of the surviving migrants were female. Lanzarote emergency services have reported that one of these women was gang-raped by her fellow passengers during the perilous journey. Three men, aged 21, 25 and 30, have since been arrested in connection with the attack.

Following the grim revelations, Lanzarote emergency services chief Enrique Espinosa told Conricas Radio he was not surprised. He said he had witnessed equally disturbing events, including passengers throwing a crying two-year-old into the water. The allegation resembles a story reported in the Telegraph just last week, in which a father appeared to abandon his own child in the English Channel.

It will not come as a shock that female migrants, often vastly outnumbered by men on their journeys, face a high risk of abuse. According to a 2021 report produced by UN Women, ‘Migrant women often suffer violence multiple times by different perpetrators, with migrant smugglers among the most common perpetrators of gender-based violence’. In 2024, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that women on the Western and Central Mediterranean routes were about three times more likely to experience sexual violence than their male counterparts.

Though I suspect the vast majority of victims’ stories will never make headlines, those that do are deeply disturbing. Almost exactly a year ago now, two female minors crossing the Mediterranean from Africa towards Spain reported being raped by the men on their boat. This came only two weeks after around 50 migrants were allegedly ‘tortured’ and tossed overboard en route to the Canary Islands after being accused of witchcraft.

Last year in Britain, an abducted child was brought to the country by small boat. The 14-year-old Turkish girl had reportedly been lured from a camp in Belgium by an Afghan national, sexually assaulted and smuggled to England, where she was subsequently forced to take up accommodation with her captor in Manchester.

A year earlier, off the shores of Italy, a 16-year-old Iraqi girl was raped and strangled to death on board a sinking ship. The perpetrator had just watched his wife and child drown. The victim’s mother watched the entire ordeal, helpless until she was able to report it to Italian police in Roccella Jonica. During that same crossing, 15 children perished.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has weighed in on the dire situation for vulnerable asylum seekers being funnelled into Europe by people smugglers. He reports that he has witnessed first-hand ‘young male illegal immigrants’ who ‘pushed women and children off the boat’ while embarking:

‘The needy are abandoned and young, often violent men push their way to the front and enter the UK. Women have recently died during crossings on these boats in unexplained circumstances… The charities supporting this wave of illegal immigration are equally guilty for what is happening, including for the deaths that have occurred.’

Indeed, the disregard for human life exhibited by the gangs responsible for small-boat crossings is consistently downplayed and ignored by well-meaning Western liberals. Hundreds of people have died or disappeared attempting the Channel crossing since 2014, according to figures compiled by monitoring organisations. In recent years, the annual death toll has risen sharply, due to traffickers’ increasing reliance on overcrowded ‘mega-dinghies’ – some of these carry hundreds of migrants at a time.

The numbers highlight the dire humanitarian cost of compromised borders. True protection for vulnerable individuals is contingent on a developed nation’s ability to enforce its laws. When parallel, unregulated systems are permitted to bypass ordinary state control, it is the most vulnerable who pay the cost. And that is what we’re seeing right now, with women and children left at the mercy of those who view human beings as commodities. Where, I wonder, is the ‘compassion’ in that?