Ten years ago a picture of a drowned two-year old shocked the world – a decade on we are blinded by hate

When my friend Ros Ereira posted on Facebook asking people to join her with placards in support of Syrian refugees, she expected about 100 people. Instead, thousands stepped up. Which is how, eleven days after the tragic photograph of Alan Kurdi was beamed around the world, I found myself walking alongside 100,000 people in London, calling on our government to welcome refugees. It was extraordinary to be part of that outpouring of solidarity. And it had an effect – the government agreed to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees.

I remember that at the time I felt hopeful I felt about the way British people responded to those seeking safety. The Sun’s campaign set up to raise money for orphans from war-torn countries, raised more than £1.5m. At the time, a Save the Children spokesperson said: “The support for our Child Refugee Appeal has been extraordinary. On the first day that the appeal for donations was on The Sun’s frontpage, we raised over £500,000. Traffic on our phone lines doubled and online activity surged fiftyfold.” An appeal by Islamic Relief UK raised more than £50,000 in its first 24 hours, and the British Red Cross said the public were “realising that it’s a massive humanitarian crisis” and had given “hundreds of thousands” of pounds.

From support for a community group in Folkestone that raised more than £3,000 to buy blankets for refugees and migrants in Calais in to pensioners in Dorset offering their spare rooms to refugees, the heart-breaking images of Alan seemed to be creating a sea-change in the public’s attitude about the refugee crisis.

During those years, I was running a charity for refugee women and was witness to extraordinary moments of connection and kindness from the British public every week. In our drop-in centre, local women and refugee women ate together, laughed together, and learned together.

When we organised a protest at the women’s immigration detention centre in 2015, hundreds of British women – mums, students, grandmothers, politicians – travelled to rural Britain to support the rights of refugee women. Refugee women also gave back to their new communities. I remember during Covid how many in our network delivered food to neighbours despite the challenges they faced themselves.

Today, these gentle everyday connections between ordinary people are being overridden by angrier and louder voices determined to sow division. Instead of recognising that refugees can be every kind of person – a child, a woman, a man, kind, mean, difficult, clever – a darker narrative is demonising them all. Nigel Farage calls people crossing the Channel in small boats a “shocking invasion”. Zia Yusuf claims that asylum seekers are all “fighting-age males from Middle Eastern countries”.

It is a rhetoric that paints all refugees as violent men. In reality, last year 28 per cent of those seeking asylum were women. For every two men in those hotels, there is one woman – a woman who has fled violence only to fear she will never find safety here. Reform politicians are even threatening to deport refugee women, including to countries such as Afghanistan, where women’s freedoms have been destroyed.

By reminding people that refugees are women and children too, I am not excusing the demonisation of men. Increasingly, commentators insist they want to deport refugees to “protect our women and girls,” claiming migrant men are responsible for disproportionate sexual violence.

I believe any man guilty of violence or antisocial behaviour must face justice. Women have the right to feel safe in their homes, schools, and streets. But violence against women is not confined to one group of men. Far from it. It is bitterly ironic that many of those protesting against migrants are men with records of violence towards women themselves. More detention and deportations will do nothing to solve the deep-seated problems of violence and inequality in our country.

Meanwhile, migrants are being blamed for all the problems in our communities, and real concerns are being exploited. Too many women in Britain, especially in working-class and disadvantaged areas, do not feel safe. Government rhetoric about tackling violence against women has unfortunately not translated into resources where they are most needed – services for survivors, timely justice in the courts, education, and prevention. Without investment in their own communities, women will go on feeling angry – and there will be no shortage of voices ready to channel that anger against refugees.

As that anger rises, our borders become ever more dangerous. In 2024 alone, more than 80 people died in the Channel, including 15 children. Each of them was as precious and loved as Alan Kurdi. Each death was an avoidable tragedy.

If we are to build a safer world for these children, we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded by hate. We must recognise our shared humanity once again – not only to create safer routes for refugees, but also to rebuild more connected, caring communities here at home. We are in danger of losing that.

Natasha Walter is the founder of Women for Refugee Women and the author of Before the Light Fades (Virago)