A European migrant crisis followed by a viral hijab sex scene from the most-viewed porn star in the world became the recipe for the sick phenomenon that is refugee pornography.
Since 2015, when Angela Merkel threw open Europe’s doors, the genre, born from the heartache of helpless women fleeing persecution and warzones has become virulent in Germany and across other European destinations.
The influx of migrants across Europe has resulted in a rising demand for refugee porn as conflict continues to consume globe – but most notably, the Middle East.
Searches for ‘Muslim’ women and ‘refugees’ across well-known porn sites have spiked in popularity over the last decade, often showing refugee women, or adult film actresses depicting refugee women being subjected to humiliation and often dominated by their male counterparts.
And because of this twisted peak in interest, and a scandal that followed one of the biggest names in porn – Mia Khalifa – to the end of the Lebanese actress’s career, the trend in migrant sex videos doesn’t seem to be on its way out any time soon.
Here, MailOnline looks at the new desire for a porn category, in which defenceless migrants become the subject of warped sexual fantasies.
Migrant porn spiked in popularity after the 2015 migrant crisis that erupted across Europe and when former Lebanese porn star Mia Khalifa was spotted in a a pornographic video wearing a religious Islamic hijab
Searches for ‘Muslim’ women and ‘refugees’ across well-known porn sites have spiked in popularity over the last decade. Pictured: Migrant women fleeing Libya for Italy
Mia Khalifa quickly became the most-searched adult-film star on the planet following a pornographic video showing her wearing a hijab
THE RISE OF THE GENRE
The accessibility to porn in the modern age is unlike any level seen before.
This ease has resulted in the intermingling of explicit adult content, popular culture, current affairs, politics, and social issues – and migrants are no exception.
A growing number of pornographic films feature plots and characters pertaining to current news themes and world figures, meaning while war and conflict erupts across the planet, there is more inspiration for perverse sex films.
The genre revolves around exoticisation, submission, and a fetish for seducing, conquering, and dominating a powerless foreign woman.
Speaking to MailOnline, sex scientist and cultural anthropologist Jakob Pastotter said: ‘The common themes we see in this genre is migrant women needing money and work in exchange for sex.
‘This is down to a power issue, that’s what viewers are attracted to.
‘In migrant porn, there is no such thing as a strong women, they just whimper like little cats.
‘And most Western men are used to powerful women in reality, but the migrant theme gives them the ability to feel powerful, it gives them a sense of superiority’.
The steep increase in the demand for refugee porn was kickstarted when migration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa hit record-high figures.
A staggering 1.3million migrants applied for asylum in Germany in 2015 after Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor, decided to open the borders into the country despite an EU regulation restricting migrants’ rights to claim asylum in the EU member state they first set foot in.
Following her move which was met with fierce criticism, specialist film companies were set up in Germany that only created refugee and hijab porn content.
Pictured: A refugee woman crying during her arrival at the main railway station on September 13, 2015 in Munich, Germany. Hundreds of refugees, mainly from Syria and Iraq, arrived in Germany after Hungary opened its borders for them to travel into Germany
Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, opened her borders in 2015, sparking a migrant crisis that saw 1.3million migrants applying for asylum in the country
Pictured: A young refugee woman carrying a baby stands at the platform at the railway station in Berlin Schoenefeld on September 13, 2015. Around 700 migrants were sent from Munich as the Bavarian city was at the limit of its capacity to welcome refugees arriving in Germany
‘There was already an audience for exotic women in porn, and when Merkel opened the borders and caused the migrant crisis of 2015, this just boosted it,’ Pastotter added.
Google Trends data from 2015 to 2024 reveals the disturbing truth around the interest in refugee porn over time.
The search term ‘Refugee porn’ has peaked some 18 times since June 1, 2015, and most notably in February 2018, October 2020, and June 2023.
It has also been reported there was also a surge in searches in the UK shortly before the Brexit vote in June 2016 and during the election in the summer of 2017.
And in an effort to cater to the growing desire of migrant porn, it was revealed in research published by German newspaper Zeit that a video made in 2003 was newly uploaded in 2017 with keywords ‘refugee’ and ‘Syrian’ in the caption.
The film showed a white man having sex with a woman wearing a headscarf.
The majority of these titles depict female protagonists in subjugated roles, who are often made to look like they have Middle Eastern origins.
In explicit scenes the women – who are often seen wearing a religious Islamic head covering – are often shown to be sexually dominated by a white man.
The headscarf – a hijab – is frequently fetishised as a symbol representing female migrants as a whole and is usually kept on in scenes even if all other garments are removed.
Some refugee porn also feature the Arabic language as part of their scripted narratives as a way of further pushing the image of female migrants as mysterious, out-of-place objects of sexual desire.
Also taking into consideration the fact that sexual exploitation, rape, violence, trafficking, slavery, and prostitution are recurrent themes in the journeys of many migrants tying to reach Europe, the issues surrounding the rise in demand for refugee porn deepens.
In reality, women are abused and taken advantage of by smugglers and traffickers as a form of payment for their services as many refugees are unable to speak the local language, lack proper documentation and are desperately trying to survive.
Defenceless women travelling alone are often forced to perform sex acts in order to fund their survival and are at times brutally raped as punishment or as payment.
Their oppressors also frequently use physical and sexual abuse to demand more money than originally agreed upon for their smuggling services, and their abuse can be recorded and distributed as porn.
Alternatively, these events are used as the inspiration behind the sick migrant porn genre that capitalises on the heartbreaking and exploitative situations by selling them as graphic fantasy.
‘It’s all about the power imbalance,’ Pastotter added.
‘Men don’t want to watch something tender and sensual, they want aggression and violence and migrants carry the idea that women are already here and are just free as objects to use’.
MIA KHALIFA’S HIJAB SCANDAL
In 2014, a whirlwind scandal revolving Lebanese former porn star Mia Khalifa, 31, broke the internet and catapulted her to international stardom after she was spotted in a sex video wearing a hijab.
It was a moment that would go on to dominate adult film sites for years and spark beheading threats from Islamic State supporters.
Mia quickly became the most-searched adult-film star on the planet following the pornographic video, which she claims was the idea of film producers.
Former porn actress Mia Khalifa was sent death threats by Islamic terror group ISIS following the release of the porn film she wore a hijab in
Following the hijab film, videos began appearing on x-rated sites with false labels including ‘Syrian Refugee Mia Khalifa in Her First-Ever Porn Shoot’
She revealed in an interview with YouTube star Anthony Padilla in 2020 that she did not know what the contents of the film they would be shooting that day were.
When asked about the reactions following the release of the video, Mia explained she had received death threats from ‘people who were so mad at me for putting on a hijab and making Muslims look bad’.
After having worked with the adult company BangBros for a few weeks when news of the death threats broke, the former porn star realised she had become involved in an industry that requested her to make more ‘controversial’ and ‘Middle Eastern’ content.
Mia quickly became known as ‘The Hijab Pornstar’ with the video having racked up 37.5million views as of 2024.
According to InfoMigrants, the majority of these views originated from the US, with the UK in second place, and Germany in sixth.
Many women came forward following the scandal to claim that the video was not an accurate representation of Muslim sex, and therefore had ulterior motives.
A 2015 report by MuslimGirl – a magazine for young Muslim women – explained that the scarf on the head of a naked body served just one purpose – to be used as a tool to explicate the Muslim-ness of the woman in the video.
‘The brown woman has no voice or real identity, she just symbolises something ‘other’ to be conquered,’ it said.
‘Mia Khalifa was groundbreaking when it comes to the success of migrant porn,’ Pastotter said.
‘She was exotic and different, and when she wore the hijab she was breaking a taboo.’
Following the hijab film, videos began appearing on x-rated sites with labels including ‘Syrian Refugee Mia Khalifa in Her First-Ever Porn Shoot’.
These false titles were uploaded to enhance the attractiveness of the video as it then contained two of the biggest porn subjects in the world at the time – Mia Khalifa and refugees.
The sex scientist explained that the hijab is a ‘very strong anchor in the Western mind to show inferiority,’ therefore catering to the desires of those who go out of their way to access porn that shows a clear power imbalance between the female porn star and her male counterpart.
‘Porn is not about attraction, it is about disgust and that’s why migrant porn is so wildly popular,’ he said.
‘It shows aggression, violence, inferiority of others, superiority of your own and it breaks taboos’.
