In summer 2024, racist and anti-migrant riots were justified by many under the language of “protecting women and girls”.

Recent police data reported by The Guardian exposes how dangerous and misleading that narrative is.

According to the findings, one in five people arrested during the 2024 anti-migrant riots have since been reported to police for domestic abuse, adding to earlier findings that two in five had already been reported for domestic abuse before the disorder took place.

This matters.

Because when violence against women and girls is used to fuel racism, anti-migrant hostility and far-right organising, it does not protect women. It puts them at greater risk.

It diverts attention away from the realities of abuse. It misleads the public about who perpetrates violence. And it leaves Black, migrant and minoritised women facing both gender-based violence and the political weaponisation of their safety.

Alongside Southall Black Sisters, Hibiscus, Latin American Women’s Rights Service, End Violence Against Women Coalition, Women for Refugee Women and Asylum Matters, Imkaan is calling on the Government to challenge this weaponisation directly, protect all victim-survivors regardless of immigration status, and commit sustained funding to specialist by and for VAWG services.

Women’s safety must never be turned into a weapon against the communities they belong to.

Read the full joint statement here: [insert link]