The women of Piddington, a tiny village in Oxfordshire, UK, are afraid. They fear the arrival of at least 1,256 asylum seekers, all male. – a figure that according to internal documents reaches over 3000 – in a rural community of around 350 people. They fear for their safety.
Piddington, governed by the Lib Dems, has no shops, no pubs, and no school. The only park used by families and children borders a former Ministry of Defence site (MoD Bicester, Site A). The Labour government's plan is to convert it into asylum accommodation for single adult men, who will be free to come and go. Local consultation was virtually absent: Westminster decided.
It was the 133 women who moved: they wrote a letter to the female parliamentarians and a video was shot in which mothers, grandmothers and widows take turns speaking “They will outnumber us 10 to 1. We will not be safe. We will live in fear. You will destroy this place. You have the power to stop this project. We beg you. We know you can. If you remain silent, you will be guilty. Stand up. Speak. Make the other women listen. Give us your word.”.
Last Tuesday residents also called for a symbolic referendum to secede from the United Kingdom in protest. Westminster's response so far has been silence. If this silence persists, it is plausible that the electorate will present the bill as is already happening with the turn right in much of Europe.
The Piddington example demonstrates that Immigration control has become of primary importance for women's safety.
Being free to move without fear is a right we have won through many battles. In the 1970s, feminists from the US to Italy marched to the sound of slogans: Take Back the Night, Let's take back the night, claiming the collective reappropriation of public space against violence.
Now the problem arises again with immigration. According to EUAA data, 731 TP3T are male asylum seekers between the ages of 18 and 34, 691 TP3T are male asylum seekers between the ages of 14 and 17, and 601 TP3T are male asylum seekers between the ages of 35 and 64. The disproportion is evident.
For a long time, the issue of security was hushed up for fear of appearing racist and bigoted. Not anymore.
Martha Wolf
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