As asylum seekers are engulfed by slurs and lies, our leaders shrug. Truly, this is shameful | Frances Ryan

The narrative that they are a threat to women and girls has no basis in fact, but bad actors peddle it, and ministers encourage them

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s anti-migrant demonstrations continued in Canary Wharf in London at the weekend, one group stood out: women dressed in Barbie pink. Holding cardboard signs drawn in bright felt-tip pen (“save our kids”), the “pink protest” marched under the banner of protecting women and girls.

The crowd may have looked a novel sight, but it points to a rationale that is increasingly gaining ground this summer: asylum seekers are a danger to British women and girls.

While the hundreds of protesters across the country – both peaceful and violent – share different motivations, there is a consistent sense that “foreigners” are a threat at best economically and culturally, and at worst physically and sexually. The ongoing unrest outside the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex was first sparked after an Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged with the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl, an accusation he has formally denied. Look at any of the towns and cities that have since seen protests – from Newcastle to Ballymena – and the far right, already having hijacked anger over the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal, are organising online under slogans such as “For our children, for our future”. Within days of the first Canary Wharf march, a group in Hampshire announced their own “pink protest” for – as they tweeted – “the safety of women and children in the community”.