That this House takes note of the Women Deliver conference held in Vancouver in June, and the role the United Kingdom plays internationally in promoting global gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
My Lords, it was with great pride that I led the United Kingdom delegation to the recent Women Deliver conference, which was hosted this year by the Government of Canada in Vancouver from 3 to 6 June. Women Deliver is a major gathering of more than 8,000 people to consider and promote women’s rights and gender equality across the world. It is an important moment to celebrate success, renew commitments and strategise for the future. The UK delegation was warmly welcomed and praised for our continued commitment to these critical issues, and the role that we are playing in helping the world reach global goal 5 on gender equality.
Never has this work felt more urgent. We are witnessing an increasingly organised global roll-back of women’s rights. For example, language on sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence was not included in recent UN Security Council Resolution 2467, which the UK deeply regrets. The UK’s support is seen as vital in this space through the significant funding we provide and through our voice on the world stage.
Women Deliver was organised around the theme of power—individual power, addressing structural power and recognising the power of movements. These themes are all covered by DfID’s 2018 Strategic Vision for Gender Equality and at the conference I outlined how we are harnessing these different forms of power.
First, I made it clear that we will continue to support and build the individual power of girls and women across the countries and communities that we support. Through UK aid, we are working to ensure that all girls and women are provided with the education, sexual and reproductive health services and economic tools to help them reach their potential.
Secondly, I acknowledged the importance of structural power and tackling the barriers and discrimination that keep too many women and girls from reaching their potential. Nowhere is this more important than in our work to prevent violence against women and girls. Thanks to the ground-breaking findings from our What Works to Prevent Violence programme, presented at Women Deliver, we know that violence is preventable. We must now work together to scale proven interventions to prevent violence against women and girls in all its forms. At Women Deliver, I announced a new £12 million programme in Zimbabwe that will work with communities to tackle the drivers of violence and provide survivors of violence with the services that they so desperately need.
Lastly, I outlined that we know that we can create lasting and truly transformational change only when we harness the power of movements. There is evidence of increased state targeting of women human rights defenders, and of growing restrictions on women’s rights organisations. I was inspired by the women leaders and activists whom I met who are fighting the roll-back at local level and delivering change in their communities with funding from DfID.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for securing this debate and introducing it in such a positive way. It was a pleasure to attend the Women Deliver global conference a week ago as a parliamentary delegate of the European parliamentary forum for sexual and reproductive rights. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the APPG on Population, Development and Reproductive Health.
Our aim as a forum is to remove restrictions on access to contraceptives and to improve policy on maternal health, child rights, access to education, vaccinations, addressing sexual violence and child marriage, as the Minister outlined. More than 8,000 delegates from 145 countries came together in Vancouver in a strong, positive spirit of pushing forward on the enormous progress that has been made over the past decade and reflecting on how we take that forward. It was a great pleasure to see the Minister there addressing the parliamentary forum and pledging ongoing support and commitment to women’s reproductive and health rights. I know her announcements were very welcome.
It was also wonderful to hear the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opening the conference and underlining Canada’s commitment to addressing sexism, misogyny and equality for women. Those were his words. He is a Liberal Prime Minister who has a gender-balanced Cabinet and has put women’s rights globally at the centre of his policies. He announced a $1.4 billion increase in spending on women’s health globally each year. He said he is a proud feminist walking the walk. We could do with him here.
The Women Deliver conference this year focused on power and how it can drive or hinder progress and change. We know that at the heart of gender equality lies the right to power over oneself and one’s future. There were calls for structural change and a more power-balanced and equal world. At the heart of global movements for progress lies the power of many and the power of change.
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Baroness Flather (CB)
My Lords, I was not at the conference; I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, for the good, clear picture she has given of what went on there and I thank her for that. I was also going to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, on putting his name down to speak, but sadly he has scratched. It is absolutely right that men should participate in this issue. Women cannot do this by themselves; it is not possible. Society is made up of men and women and we need both to work towards a more equal society; otherwise, we will for ever be saying, “We wish, we wish”.
There are countries where women play no part in the economy or in society as a whole. We sit here in this wonderful Chamber with wonderful people and forget how terrible women’s lives can be. I speak particularly about India, which is my country of origin. Women in India are mostly treated as worthless—not even whole, maybe half—human beings. When convenient, they can be discarded; when it suits someone, they can be burned to death. Anything can be done to women in India. Rapes are so commonplace, especially in the north of the country. It is amazing how many women get raped in north India; Delhi is very bad. Of course they can go to the police, but the person has to be found. That requires a real commitment to doing something, and there is no such commitment. Ultimately, we have to accept that there is no commitment by countries such as India to look after women.
The present Prime Minister decided in his previous term that women should have proper toilets. He made a rule that a lot of toilets should be built—not in schools, of course, which was difficult for girls, but apart from that a lot of toilets were to be built in villages and so on. I came back from India in February and what did I hear? A lot of these toilets do not have water; a lot of the materials used were discarded materials, broken toilets and other bits and pieces that made it look as though the job had been done. This is very common in India: contractors who are given a contract will do a job in such a way that most of the money goes into their pockets and nothing really improves. Unless somebody makes sure that the work is done properly to provide them, women will not have toilets; it will be just words. If they cannot use them, they do not have them. It is very upsetting to me to notice how many things that are supposed to be done are in fact not. The constitution of India gives equality to women but in reality they have never had it, and gives equality to people of all castes but they have never had it either, and it looks very unlikely that that will happen in most of our lifetimes; I have very little left, but there are quite a few people here with longer lifetimes left. What is the point of laws if they are not enforced or a constitution if it is not followed?
My Lords, I declare an interest as per the register. I start by congratulating my noble friend the Minister on her appointment and wishing her every success in all the work ahead of her. I know that, armed with her commitment, she will make a difference. I also thank her predecessor, my noble friend Lord Bates, for his dedication to improving the lives of those who do not have the fortune to live in a safe, secure and democratic country.
This is a crucially important debate. I can hardly remember a time when there has been such a sustained disregard for human rights, particularly women’s rights. It is concerning that some of those attacks are arising in not just the usual suspects of authoritarian countries but Europe and the United States. I am sure my noble friend shares my dismay at seeing the United States contribute directly to a weakening of language on sexual and reproductive health rights in a number of UN bodies, including the recent UN Security Council resolution championed by Germany on sexual violence in conflict.
As my noble friend said, we are witnessing a global rollback of women’s rights, and gender equality is facing uncertain times. The United Kingdom’s leadership on women’s rights, women, peace and security, and sexual violence in conflict is more important than ever. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the staff of the Department for International Development for their contribution to development and the rights of women worldwide. It is yet another reminder of how fortunate we are in this country to have the Civil Service that we do.
Equality and rights for women begin at home. Sheer logic dictates that we cannot speak up effectively for women in countries such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia if our own house is not in order. I therefore hope that my noble friend can give us some assurance that the Istanbul convention will soon be ratified and fully integrated into our law. The convention is the most comprehensive legal framework that exists to address violence against women and girls, including domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, FGM, honour violence and forced marriage. I think noble Lords on all sides would agree that our ratification is well overdue.
My Lords, although like others I note that we are predominantly ladies in this debate—with the honourable exception of my noble friend Lord McConnell—I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, on securing this opportunity to reflect on the recent Women Deliver conference, so soon after it took place earlier this month. This is indeed a welcome chance to note the role that the UK is playing in promoting global gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Women Deliver is the world’s largest conference on gender equality and women’s rights, health and well-being. This year, the 7,000 attendees and speakers, from some 165 countries, included everyone from the noble Baroness herself to Melinda Gates and the #MeToo movement’s Tarana Burke, from the Canadian Prime Minister to the President of Ethiopia, not to mention hundreds of campaigners, government officials, civil society and youth leaders, academics, activists and journalists. However, I was concerned to hear that many invitees from African countries, including Ethiopia, had their visas denied, with little explanation. This is really disappointing, especially given how crucial it is that the global fight for women’s rights and equality involves partners from across the world. Some of the greatest challenges for women’s rights are in the developing world, and we must work with the leaders of these states if we are to realise our goals of gender parity. As the UK will be hosting a global summit to end sexual violence here in November, can the Minister confirm that this conference will involve representatives from across the world?
To date, the UK has a good track record on advocating gender equality and empowerment for women and girls on the international stage. In the Minister’s address to the conference, I was particularly pleased to hear her give her commitment to the UK continuing that work. We have taken great steps in support of the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals, as outlined in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. It is absolutely right that the UK continues to deliver on its commitment to SDG 5, the much lobbied-for goal entirely dedicated to gender parity, which challenges the world to:
My Lords—or, I should say, mostly noble Baronesses—I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, because I was at the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver. In fact, it was the fourth Women Deliver conference I have attended over the years, and they are getting bigger. As you have heard, there were over 8,000 people this time. I declare an interest, too, as chair of the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health.
Among the many hundreds of meetings one could go to, one stood out for me. It made a change from the usual diet of women’s reproductive health issues, which I will come to later. At an absolutely packed meeting, I heard a report called the State of the World’s Fathers. It was given by an organisation called Promundo, which I know, and is leading a global campaign called MenCare to promote the involvement of men and boys in childcare and domestic duties. I chaired a meeting in the House for its first report four years ago, and again last week for this recent report. By the way, I am sorry that only one male Member of this House is speaking, but I guess every other male noble Lord will read the debate tomorrow evening while their wife prepares the dinner, clears up afterwards, gets ready for bed and sets the breakfast. I am sure that is true.
I am not entirely joking, because the report points out that women do most of the work in the home, regardless of their other duties. To achieve a 50:50 balance, it is calculated that men need to do 50 minutes of housework and childcare every day, if they are to be fair to their partners. Of course, many men do help with caring and housework—please do not get me wrong—particularly in some societies. But I vividly remember my first trip with the International Development Committee, which was to Uganda. We were taken to a village right out in the sticks, where the women had prepared a presentation of drawings and speeches to tell us what their day was like. It was amusing as well as informative, and their day consisted of getting up very early in the morning to fetch the water from some distance; cleaning the yard; making a meal before getting the children off to school; waking their husbands and feeding same; working in the fields until dark; preparing dinner; clearing up and settling children; and serving dinner to the men, who had been sitting under the trees all day. They had drawn a lovely picture of that. The men, we were told, were discussing important matters and had to do this most days. It was a regular day for the subsistence farmer families in Uganda at that time.
My Lords, when visiting areas affected by conflict over the years, whether in the southern Philippines, northern Nigeria, the DRC, the Central African Republic, Myanmar or many other places, two significant trends struck me as unavoidable. The first is that, increasingly, conflicts around the world are internal and based on identity. They have at their core a dispute between people of different identities, where historically one of which, at least, has faced discrimination, disadvantage and violence over the years. The second is that the people who come off worst in these conflicts, again and again, are the women and girls. You do not have to be there very long, visit very often or even visit more than once to recall the haunted look on the faces of women who have been attacked by combatants despite the fact that they themselves and their girls, and their boy children as well, have never been involved in that conflict.
That is why this debate is so important. I congratulate the Minister not only on securing the debate today but on the way in which she has embraced her new brief since taking over from her predecessor—who was certainly a hard act to follow, I am sure—and more particularly for what she said in opening the debate and the way in which she described our interventions, as a country, at the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver. If we are indeed to put power at the heart of our policy in this area, in any of the three areas she described—the individual power of women, through better education; the structural power, tackling the issues of violence and discrimination; or the power of movements to defend and expand rights—that is exactly the right place for us to be locating our international policy in this area, and I welcome that very much.
I also very much welcome the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and strongly endorse the two proposals she made for the conference in November. It is absolutely right to say that we have to tackle the growing international culture of impunity and we need a structural way in which to do that—not just hoping for cultural change in the Security Council or anywhere else. She is absolutely right to call for increased funding for the survivors of sexual violence in conflict and the rebuilding of their lives.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord; I think that I speak for all noble Lords when I express my appreciation of his support. I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and congratulate the Minister on securing time for it in the House.
The Women Deliver conference and this debate are forums where we can focus on gender equality and the health, rights and well-being of women and girls in the 21st century. This year, 40 years since the adoption of CEDAW, they give us the opportunity not only to celebrate some successes but to renew our commitment to women’s rights ahead of the UK’s voluntary national review of the SDGs next month. Indeed, it is important that we ensure continued focus. As we have heard, we are seeing a shrinking of space for civil society across the world and the global withdrawal of access to abortions and other reproductive health services from the US, with the targeting of women’s human rights defenders prevalent in many countries. We even see this rollback at the UN. As my noble friend the Minister told us, UNSCR 2467 on conflict-related sexual violence, passed in April, was not able to hold on to the language on sexual health and reproductive rights of the Beijing Declaration and platform for action.
Next year is a very important year: it is the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action and the fifth anniversary of the SDGs. The US will chair the G7 summit and Saudi Arabia is due to chair the G20. I am concerned that there will be further attempts to undermine global progress. The UK needs to stand firm for the hard-won victories on global gender equality and sexual and reproductive health rights.
Before I go further, I should draw attention to my various roles in development and women’s interest organisations as listed in the register of interests. In particular, I co-chair the APPG on Women, Peace and Security and I am a member of the steering board for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative.
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I spent some time speaking with three FGM activists who have been supported through Amplify Change, an organisation partly funded by DfID. They explained how they were able to achieve real progress on the ground, through using their contacts and direct knowledge to influence and slowly change behaviour within their own communities. One inspiring woman had supported 28 communities to take collective action to end infantile FGM—and she was not stopping there.
It was clear from all my conversations that we need to do more to support women’s rights organisations and activists to push for change and hold their own Governments and societies to account. I was pleased to announce that DfID is supporting the Women Deliver Advocacy Academy to provide intense, hands-on training for grass-roots activists from around the world on critical projects. This is particularly important in crisis settings, where women are too often seen as victims rather than as powerful agents of change. As donors, we need to work with women leaders and women’s rights organisations. I delivered closing remarks to the Humanitarian Pre-Conference at Women Deliver, where I made clear our position on the need to increase support to women-led organisations in humanitarian crises.
Women Deliver was a vital moment to make the UK’s long-term, progressive position on sexual and reproductive health and rights crystal clear. We support SRHR because it saves and transforms lives. For instance, through the FP2020 global partnership, we have contributed to nearly 50 million more women in the world’s poorest countries taking up modern contraception since 2012. We fund SRHR programmes, including on family planning and maternal and newborn healthcare, in 18 countries.
At Women Deliver, we hosted a flagship side event focusing on rights, power and women’s bodies. We gave a platform to activists and experts working on traditionally taboo topics, from menstruation to trans rights, violence and abortion. Through this event we outlined DfID support for the Guttmacher-Lancet definition of SRHR, which expands on the language agreed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, underpinning a truly comprehensive approach. I was also pleased to announce an uplift to our programme with the Guttmacher Institute, bringing our current support to £13.6 million.
There is no doubt that we are facing uncertain times in the fight for women’s rights. There are people around the world who want to control women, restrict their choices and deny them their rights—but, at the same time, we are also seeing women and men rising up to defend these rights and questioning the injustices that they have tolerated for decades. Women Deliver was a true testament to the solidarity of the women’s rights movement.
Through UK aid and our presence on the world stage, we will continue to advance gender equality, protect sexual and reproductive health and rights and stand with the most marginalised women and girls to ensure that truly no one is left behind. I beg to move.
It is now accepted that the empowerment of girls and women benefits everyone. Education for girls benefits whole communities and societies. It can transform lives, change the world and power real, sustainable progress. From the #MeToo movement, to young people campaigning for greater equality from those in power, to mainstream gender equality, we have seen incredible shifts in progress. There were so many younger, inspirational women there, which was very exciting. They are working on the ground at the coalface of some of the projects around the world. They have higher expectations. They are not simply grateful for or satisfied with the progress that has been made. They want more. They want women’s rights to become universal rights.
We have heard that there is a backlash in some countries, particularly in America, to restrict women’s reproductive rights and their right to have control over their own bodies. There was a strong sense that we must face them down and redouble our efforts and energies to ensure that the tides of regressive politics do not prevail. How many of us have heard the phrase in connection with women’s rights, “It’s gone too far”, even from some quarters in our own country? I have heard it a lot. Really? What does it mean? The director of the UNFPA has asked how it is possible, in this day and age, that 800 women die in childbirth every day. Why should we tolerate laws to resist women’s rights in the face of these appalling statistics? We cannot point to any laws that take away rights from men in these countries, so why should we tolerate it for women?
The Listening Tour was a very good initiative undertaken by the organisers of the Women Deliver conference. It reached an unprecedented level of engagement, with over 1,300 surveys completed by over 75 international organisations and hundreds of individuals. One key theme—it is one that I heard constantly—was that sexual and reproductive health and rights are now under threat and that the global political climate becoming ever more precarious is having a troubling and chilling effect on women’s rights. Although some recent gains have been made, sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the right to safe abortion, are under threat in many places.
We heard from an MP from El Salvador, where abortion is illegal, that 17 young women are currently in prison because they had either a termination or, as some of them claim, a miscarriage. In March this year, El Salvador’s Supreme Court commuted the 30-year sentences of three women imprisoned for abortion convictions, lessening their punishment to time served and ordering them to be released immediately. The three women had spent 10 years in prison on aggravated homicide charges for allegedly having abortions. They claimed that they had had miscarriages. The court found that the women were victims of social and economic circumstances and ruled that the original sentences were unreasonable. These women did not become pregnant on their own, but it is the women who suffer in these poor and disadvantaged circumstances. It really is shocking and disgraceful.
Many delegates also found that pervasive inequalities and a lack of access to data and technology are stalling progress. Damaging gender norms are perpetuating harmful practices such as FGM, as has been mentioned, child marriage and other forms of violence against girls and women. Often male-dominated parliaments will rail against those things but do little to encourage or actively promote women’s involvement in their respective legislatures. Some Prime Ministers and Presidents of various countries who were present at the conference were challenged about why they were not doing more to get women into their parliaments. I think that Justin Trudeau challenged a couple of Presidents, saying, “If we can do it, why can’t you?”
We already know that, as a result of both biological and gender-related differences, there can be a significant impact on health depending on whether you are a man or a woman. The World Health Organization, which had a very strong presence at the conference, has stated very clearly:
“The health of women and girls is of particular concern because, in many societies, they are disadvantaged by discrimination rooted in sociocultural factors”.
I heard from a young woman in a session that I was involved in on menstruation. She said that she faced extraordinary disadvantage and discrimination once she started menstruating. No sanitary products are available or affordable and, as a result, many girls are forced to drop out of school each month, and then eventually they drop out of education altogether. That is before the stigma they face in some countries from their own family, like the girl I have just mentioned, who was from Nepal. She told me that she had to stay in an outhouse while she was menstruating and was not allowed to look at her father.
Some of the sociocultural factors that prevent women and girls benefiting from quality health services and attaining the best possible level of health include inequality, ridiculous stigmas and taboos, and power relationships between men and women. As I mentioned, there was a sense of a new generation who have a far greater understanding and are better informed about what is going on in the world. They want more information and more connectivity, a drive to achieve greater equality and human rights, and an acknowledgement that women’s rights are human rights. There were calls for more empowerment and representation of women and minority and LGBT+ communities. There was a very strong feeling that women’s rights are not an add-on; they must be mainstreamed and embedded.
Perhaps one of the most important issues to come out of this conference, which I think everyone signed up to, is that men and boys are key to achieving gender equality. With one notable exception, the Members on the list of speakers today are all women. More men are needed globally to sign up to this. It is so important. We know that we need men to step up and work alongside the majority of women tackling this agenda. Gender equality is not a women’s issue; it is a societal issue and everyone must be involved if we are to reach a more equal world.
As the Minister has already mentioned, there has been such alarm about what has been going on in some of the larger donor countries. Will she provide a commitment that there will be no rolling back on women’s reproductive rights? I would also like to ask a domestic question—we need to lead by example—about last week’s statistics showing that more than 1,000 women had travelled to the United Kingdom from Northern Ireland for an abortion because it is illegal there. Despite an NHS abortion being free for Northern Irish women, their having to travel outside Northern Ireland to get access to safe healthcare when they are a part of our United Kingdom is not a position that an equal society should be advocating or tolerating. How can we justify a two-tier system for our own female population?
How do you change the life of a poor woman in India? My personal view is that there is only one way and that is by giving her access to paid work, even a small amount—a small amount of pay, that is; the work may be whatever. If she earns even a little bit of money, that changes her position in the household. Please do not forget that it is not only society that does not value her; her family do not value her either. She is the one who has to do all the work and provide for other people in the family, not to mention the husband, who probably gets drunk every Friday—Saturday, sorry; we do not have a Friday holiday—and beats her up. Most women in the big metropolises, not so much in Delhi but particularly in Mumbai, who are not educated but are quite intelligent are working in the informal sector. They cook and clean as well as doing a small amount of such things as nail polishing and massage, and they earn money. But what happens to that money is that the husbands take it away from them, and a lot of the men stop working when their wives start earning.
The other side of the coin is that there are many families in which, if a woman earns something, her position changes in the household and she becomes a person instead of being just a body in the house. To my way of thinking, our Government should focus a bit more on small-scale co-operatives or organisations that provide small-scale work for women. If you do that, you change those women as well as other people’s view of them. The most important issue is how people view women in a country such as India; they are not viewed as capable, or as able to do things or be someone. If they start earning money, that changes everyone’s minds. We all know that. Many of your Lordships have probably been to projects and seen how the women change once they are earning money.
However, that is not happening because the big companies and corporations do not employ women. Even if the job is to run a cafeteria or do the cleaning in the office, it will be men doing it. Everything is done by the men, not the women, and I do not know how we can change that. Perhaps we could ask our Government to focus more on bringing about the capacity for women to earn something, because that would change their lives and those of their families. They say that men spend only 35% of their wages on their families. Imagine how much they spend on themselves.
There are issues that need to be looked at. Unless men join in this battle, change will not happen. Village councils have quotas for the number of women. Some of those councils have women presidents or chairmen. Who are they? They are probably the mothers of the worst thugs in the area or the wives of the richest men. We need the women to do whatever they are going to do because they can do it. We do not need women to be put forward by their menfolk, which is quite common in a country such as India. If you go further north to a part of India called Haryana, which is the richest state and where earnings and income are very high, that is the worst for women. On a Channel 4 programme, I saw that a girl and a boy had been hanged in the house by their parents, because they married without their consent. It is very depressing to hear that these things are happening.
My last point relates to the protection of women in conflict situations. Nobody protects women in conflict situations and now the United States has introduced a strong ban on any kind of abortion. Even if a woman is raped 10 times in a conflict situation and becomes pregnant, she is not allowed to have an abortion. If she does, the organisation which carries out that abortion will not get any US aid. I once wrote a letter to the ambassador, saying, “What if it was somebody you knew? What if it was somebody from your family?”. All women are women. They should be treated as if they are members of a man’s family, but they are not—perhaps because these men do not even treat their own families well. It is very worrying that the United States has introduced such a strong ban on abortions, even in conflict situations.
There are a lot of battles to be fought. I do not know whether they will be fought, or whether they will be won. We all keep trying in our own way. I have set up a registered charity called Women Matter, which focuses on getting women into paid work. We all try, in our own way, to do whatever we can. I think all noble Lords here would agree with that, but it is a big job.
I welcome the work that has been done at the Department for International Development, the achievements that have been made in meeting the SDGs and the Government’s strategic vison for gender equality. I also recognise that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact recently concluded that violence against women and girls is,
“competing with a broader range of priorities”,
than before, and that DfID’s work has been “moving slowly”. I will therefore focus my remarks on two areas where I believe that the United Kingdom can show significant leadership that would help to accelerate progress and to set an example to other countries. Both relate to the international review conference on sexual violence in conflict, which the Government are hosting in November as part of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. The conference is a unique opportunity to reboot the UK’s leadership on the PSVI, and on the women, peace and security agenda as a whole.
Daesh’s use of rape and sexual slavery as a genocidal strategy towards the Yazidi people, and the brutal sexual violence carried out in Syria, Iraq, Burma and most recently Sudan, to take just a few examples, demonstrate that the case for action is even more urgent today than in 2012 when the PSVI began. It also shows that impunity for the use of rape as a weapon of war and terror is still the norm. My first proposal therefore concerns the urgent need to strengthen the international community’s ability to hold perpetrators of war-zone rape to account. Part of the current problem is the willingness of some Security Council members to shield perpetrators of mass rape and other war crimes, as Russia and China have done in the case of Syria and Myanmar, through the use, or threat of use, of their Security Council veto. This creates the risk of significant delay in holding alleged war criminals to account.
The other significant obstacle is a lack of reliable evidence of sexual crimes that can stand up in court, which has contributed to the difficulty of ensuring successful prosecutions for the use of rape as a weapon of war. A further problem has emerged, as in the case of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, which is the proliferation of informal efforts to gather evidence of rape and related crimes. This has led to reported instances of survivors being interviewed multiple times—on some occasions 25 times—and evidence being damaged in a legal sense.
To address these issues, I endorse a proposal from my noble friend Lord Hague and the special envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie, that the UK champions the creation of a permanent international investigatory body on sexual and gender-based violence. This would have the mandate and resources to gather and preserve evidence and prepare case files for international or national prosecutions so that, whenever an ICC referral, ad hoc tribunal or local prosecution can take place, the evidence is ready.
Those who commission, condone and carry out sexual violence as a strategy of war rely on the assumption that they will get away with these crimes—that their victims will be too intimidated and ashamed to speak, that the evidence will be lost, and that they can sit out the international community, which lacks the will to hold perpetrators of this horrendous crime to account. A permanent investigatory body is an essential part of beginning to shatter each of these assumptions and to start to end impunity for conflict-related sexual violence. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can give her support to this objective.
This is a prime example of where prevention and deterrence are infinitely preferable to dealing with the consequences of a crime, not only for the lives of the survivors, but for all our efforts in the sphere of international development, which are significantly undermined by sexual and gender-based violence. I hope the Government will use the opportunity presented by the November conference to announce their commitment to seeking the creation of this body, along with a group of like-minded countries.
Secondly, as my noble friend the Minister will know, gender-based violence is a persistently underfunded aspect of international humanitarian relief and development programmes. Gender-based violence, already widespread in times of peace, is exacerbated during conflict and other humanitarian crises and continues to be one of the most pervasive human rights violations. Evidence suggests that approximately one in five displaced or refugee women is subjected to sexual violence. Girls under the age of 18 in particular, but also boys in this group, often make up the majority of survivors. Yet sexual and gender-based violence is not prioritised by donors, and funding is often inadequate to the scale of the problem.
Allocations for sexual gender-based violence funding were just 0.12% of total humanitarian funding from 2016 to 2018. That is $51.7 million, from a total of $41.5 billion. Research by the International Rescue Committee suggests that, for the same period, two-thirds of funding requests for gender-based violence in emergencies were not met, leaving a gap of over $100 million. The UN’s last report on conflict-related sexual violence identified 19 countries where verifiable incidents of sexual violence took place, and specifically highlighted the funding problem.
The shortfalls in funding have an impact on the ground for survivors. For example, the 2016 UN humanitarian response plan noted that 28,000 reports of sexual violence had been officially recorded in the Central African Republic, and requested $28 million for gender-based violence programs. In response, only $1 million was committed by donors, according to the International Rescue Committee. The same goes for the situation in Lebanon and the DRC. The international community needs to close this funding gap, strengthen protection measures and increase access to life-saving services, including sexual and reproductive health services.
The UK could set a lead by dedicating a fixed or minimum percentage of its aid budget to fighting sexual and gender-based violence. I hope that the International Development Secretary uses the opportunity of the November PSVI summit to announce that the UK will devote at least 1% of its budget to addressing this. The UK has an opportunity to lead the way and set a global standard that other international donors could then follow. It would demonstrate long-term commitment, and help improve transparency on UK spending to support women and girls—which has been publicly stated as a top policy commitment for the Government. It would allow NGOs and civil society organisations to plan and deliver effective long-term support to communities and survivors of sexual violence, and, by ensuring continuity of funding, it would help to bridge the divide between humanitarian, development and peacebuilding efforts.
This could be a signature moment for UK leadership, which has already led the way internationally on PSVI, girls’ education, family planning and FGM. It would be a natural next step for our country to take, to defend and support women and girls who have been the victims of sexual and gender-based violence in the world’s poorest and most fragile countries.
Violence against women is a major barrier to achieving gender equality. It is rooted in discrimination and harmful social norms and stereotypes. Far too often, our response focusses on help for survivors after the event. However, we know that the best way to end violence against women and girls is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Therefore, I hope that the Government will consider these two proposals, alongside the many other actions that they are taking. We have an opportunity to send a signal to the rest of the world that the UK will not only defend progress made on women’s rights in previous decades but also show the leadership and political will needed to help achieve new progress in the years to come.
“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”,
by 2030.
The UK’s continuing commitment to this goal is particularly important when we look at what is happening elsewhere today. As the Minister has observed, the world is witnessing a global roll-back of women’s rights. Campaigns to undo women’s hard-won victories are gaining traction; I think of course of the recent rulings in Alabama and Missouri on abortion rights in the US. The US position on sexual and reproductive health and rights is deeply worrying. Earlier this year, these rights were excluded from a UN resolution on combating rape in conflict, after pressure from the US on the grounds that such language implies support for abortions. Watering down the text in this way has gone against years of gains for women’s rights in situations of armed conflict. My party has pledged to provide political leadership globally where women’s rights are under attack, championing women’s sexual and reproductive health rights and mitigating the impact of US-led funding cuts. Will the Minister outline what recent representations the Government have made to our US ally over women’s rights?
I am thinking of the recent Crisis In Care report from the International Women’s Health Coalition, which noted that since the US Administration announced that any foreign charity receiving US funding would be prohibited from promoting or performing abortions, an organisation in Kenya which focused on maternal and newborn health has been forced to terminate programmes after refusing to sign this rule. Can the Minister tell us what representations have been made to the US Administration over this policy, which is now leading to the denial of aid to some of the world’s most vulnerable?
As the Women Deliver conference heard, the UK has long been recognised as a global leader on gender equality. Our initiatives have meant that girls and women across the world are leading safer, healthier lives. By backing Africa-led work to end female genital mutilation, challenging child marriage, upholding sexual and reproductive health and rights, and helping girls to get a good education, we have helped to give women and girls the opportunity to fulfil their potential. But I am concerned that the UK, too, may be rolling back on this commitment as it focuses more on its trade and economic development work. In May last year, the Government published an update on the UK’s key targets for the SDGs. As we see, there is no room for complacency over any past gains made in these areas. The findings of a new global index measuring efforts to end gender inequality were published last week in Vancouver. They show that with 11 years to go, no country is on track to reach the 2030 target on gender equality.
The SDG gender index developed by the Equal Measures 2030 partnership measured progress on 51 targets in 14 of the sustainable development goals. The average overall score for the 129 countries in the index, home to 95% of the world’s women and girls, was 65.7 out of 100. This is firmly in the “must do better” category; the findings show that nearly 40% of the world’s women and girls—1.4 billion—currently live in countries that are not doing enough to improve women’s lives. Only a fraction of total aid by OECD donors—0.1%—is committed to women’s organisations, and only 0.02% to women’s organisations based in developing countries. Given the vital role of women’s groups in tackling gender inequality, can the Minister tell us what steps her department is taking to increase the funding for these organisations?
I quote from the State of the World’s Fathers report:
“Globally, women spend significantly more time than men—sometimes up to ten times as much—on unpaid care … and domestic work. If this is calculated on the basis of an hourly minimum wage, it could make up 9 to 11 percent of global … GDP”.
This rather amused me in the report:
“In 2018, 606 million women of working age”—
I do not know if all 606 million were personally interviewed, but it got the figure from somewhere—
“around the world said that they were unable to take on paid work because of unpaid”,
domestic “responsibilities”. That rings true to many of us. It continues:
“In countries where women spend twice as much time as men on unpaid care, their average earnings”,
when they do outside work,
“are less than two-thirds of men’s ... This disparity lies at the heart of gender inequality; it keeps women, families, communities, countries, and the world poor”.
The women in Uganda expressed very forcefully how hard women work. In many ways though, they are not that different from many women in developed countries, who work all day outside the home, but are still responsible for all the childcare, domestic work and shopping arrangements. Added to that, they still do not get equal pay for the work they do.
The World Economic Forum has said that a country’s GNP improves substantially if women are encouraged to work outside the home. Our Government encourage mothers to work outside the home, but—and it is a big “but”—if they are to do this, and many do, better facilities must be provided for childcare. In this country, they are still woefully inadequate, and partners must do more to help.
Policy changes suggested in the report are better education for boys on home responsibilities and childcare—that is creeping into our schools; talking to my grandchildren, I think that it is beginning to happen—and not just equal pay for equal work but equal, fully paid, non-transferable parental leave for all parents. That is central to setting the foundation for fathers’ involvement with their children from an early age.
This is all very well and one hopes that it is starting to happen, but there can never be liberation and true empowerment of women until they have power over their own bodies—that is my favourite sentence. This means, of course—my favourite subject, too—that they must have access to affordable or free family planning and safe abortion, so that they can choose how many children to have and not just be breeding machines until they die of exhaustion. I know that this Government and the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, are committed to this subject, but perhaps she could tell us just how committed they are in changing circumstances.
In this country—I know that it is not the Minister’s responsibility, but it is that of her Government—family planning services are rapidly disappearing as council budgets are cut and women either have to travel long distances to find a specialist service or go to their GP, who in many cases prescribes only the pill and gives them little choice over what method to use. I note that abortion rates in older women are rising, which could be due to such lack of provision. I hope that she can comment on this.
On international development, will funding to NGOs providing sexual and reproductive health services be provided in coming years? They were not last year, because there was a different system, so there is a big gap to fill worldwide in those services since President Trump reintroduced the gag rule—we have heard about that already; I do not need to explain it. That affects all NGOs providing sexual and reproductive health services whether or not they include abortion.
How will the Government maintain their fine reputation in this field? To do so means constantly repeating the policy on abortion after rape in conflict, which should be provided under international humanitarian law whether or not the national law of the country concerned allows it. Will the Government confirm that they will stick to 0.7% of GNP being spent on international development, of which 10% should be on sexual and reproductive health?
I congratulate the Government—it is hard for me to congratulate a Tory Government—on what they have done so far for women’s rights, and women’s reproductive rights particularly, worldwide. I trust that they will try even harder in the future.
I have just returned from northern Iraq—in fact I read about the Women Deliver conference when I was there. I was there at exactly the same time and in Duhok, Mosul and Irbil in northern Iraq I visited several internally displaced persons camps and refugee camps and spoke to a number of agencies and local officials. I was struck by two things yet again. The first was the crucial importance of education. Mosul is a historic city destroyed by Islamic State and the conflict that led to the liberation, we hope, of the city 18 months ago. Today there are nearly 2,000 schools open again in Mosul; children are studying in school holiday periods to catch up on the years of education that they lost under Islamic State rule in that city, and there is hope again in their hearts and minds. Yet only two hours away, in Irbil, there are thousands of children, both refugees from Syria and displaced children and families from Mosul and elsewhere, living in IDP camps and sharing one small school between 12,000 people. There are thousands of children working in shifts to try and get some education at some point during the week. In fact, I met a group of teenage girls who had not been in school for three years: they were not allowed to attend the school in the IDP camp because they had missed out and dropped back a couple of grades. We hope that they will be able to rectify that.
The issue of education is crucial. Seeing the hope on the other, of these schools reopening in Mosul and, the despair of the children stuck for years in these camps in Irbil reinforced for me the importance not just of education for refugees but education for girls and indeed boys who have been internally displaced, of whom there are almost twice as many worldwide as there are refugees. My most telling visits were to the Yazidi families in the camps in Duhok. There are still 300,000 Yazidis displaced in Duhok. They are terrified to go home to their historic lands in Sinjar and their numbers are being added to regularly now with the survivors of kidnapping and sex slavery coming back to the families in the hope that they can at some point perhaps rebuild their lives.
I believe very strongly that we in the United Kingdom have a duty in Iraq, given our role there over the last 20 years and perhaps in the past as well, to step up to the plate and support these sufferers of not just internal displacement but in particular of sexual and other sorts of violence as they try to return home. Will the Minister say what level of support we are providing for education, psychological support and improved governance in Sinjar, in the hope that the women who were sold into repeated rapes and sexual slavery will at some point have the confidence to rebuild their lives and the ability to return home with their families?
I will draw out two points from the Iraqi experience in relation to women and girls worldwide. Education and the crucial issue of tackling the culture of impunity in relation to sexual violence in conflict are central. As Members of your Lordships’ House know, I believe very strongly that the global goals of the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development provide a framework in which we can make a real difference over these years in development both globally and here at home.
Two goals stand out for me in particular as most likely to deliver the goal of gender equality—the goal on education and goal 16 on peace and justice. In every country where women face colossal discrimination, not just casual or structural discrimination but deep violence and discrimination through child marriage, sexual abuse and lack of rights, education, opportunity and individual freedom, education has to be one of the keys to changing that situation. Our investment in girls’ education over recent years has been substantial and very welcome, but I hope that, when the UK goes to the United Nations in July with our voluntary national review report on the global goals, we will not just reinforce that commitment to global education but go further and commit to supporting education for these internally displaced children. There are nearly 20 million of them worldwide; they are the responsibility of their national Governments rather than of the international community, but I believe that we have a humanitarian responsibility to them. If we genuinely believe in gender equality, we need to ensure that education gets to these girls, and to their brothers as well.
I also believe that we need to expand further the very welcome Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and the other initiatives that successive Governments in the UK have undertaken to try to improve conflict prevention and reduce the impact of conflict globally. Under goal 16, we should be leading the charge for a major international initiative that pulls these different strands of work together and recognises that conflict today is based on identity and deep in the psychology of those involved, but also that it increasingly affects civilians, particularly women and girls, more than it affects combatants. We need to find a way in the review of the global goals that will take place at the United Nations in September to reinforce the commitment to goal 16 and also to lead an initiative that would put goal 16 at the heart of the work of the United Nations on its 75th anniversary next year.
There has never been a time in the cause of conflict prevention and dealing with those affected by violent conflict—apart from the world wars, which were of course particular occasions—when so many people in so many countries have been affected by this. The United Kingdom could take a lead here. There are so many countries around the world that would want to be involved in such an initiative, and so many places that need it.
I hope that we can lead an international charge as we go through not just the voluntary national review of our commitment to the global goals at the United Nations in July but the review of the goals themselves in September, and into the 75th anniversary of the United Nations next year. Conflict prevention—that is, preventing violence and sexual violence in conflict as well as all the other violence going on around the world today—could be the great challenge for the UN in the decades to come.
We could discuss so many issues this afternoon but I wish to focus on a few that I feel incredibly strongly about. As we have heard, it is in conflict countries that women suffer most, and their rights roll back. Since the adoption of the women, peace and security agenda through UNSCR 1325 in 2000, only 27% of peace agreements have referenced women. Between 1992 and 2011, women made up only 9% of negotiators in peace processes and 4% of signatories; that fell to 3% between 2008 and 2012. Yet we know that where women are included in peace processes, there is a 20% increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least two years and a 35% increase in the probability of it lasting at least 15 years. We also know that unless women are included at the table, there will be peace and security in a country for only half the population and women will remain at risk.
The UK “holds the pen” at the UN on women, peace and security. However—forgive me, for I know that I have asked this question before—nearly 19 years after the adoption of Resolution 1325, why are Syrian women not allowed at the peace table? We should not have to justify why women should be included in peace processes; we should ask the men to justify why they are not. As we look at the tentative peace processes in Yemen and Afghanistan, where are the women? I understand that the US, which is convening the talks with the Taliban, has a law to include women in peace processes, but it seems that it is being totally ignored. How can we in the UK exert global influence to make sure that more countries adhere to what they have signed up to?
The Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, launched by William Hague and Angelina Jolie in 2012, brought this issue to global attention. As we have heard, it affects men as well as women, although the majority of victims are women. The initiative was always going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and the situation was and continues to be of such magnitude that it needs sustained and long-term effort. Can the Minister update us on the plans for the PSVI international conference that the UK will host this November, five years on from the 2014 global summit? We need to ensure that the UK and indeed the world does not lose focus on this issue and to keep the pressure up. One only has to look at the conflicts raging today—the high levels of sexual violence committed by Daesh against the Yazidis or the stories coming out of the Rohingya camp at Cox’s Bazar—to see how very relevant the initiative is.
I spoke in greater detail about the crisis involving adolescent girls in my Question for Short Debate earlier this year. UNESCO statistics tell us that girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school if they live in conflict-affected countries and that adolescent girls are a staggering 90% more likely to miss school. It is not unexpected that access to education is curtailed during conflict, but I put it to the House that the needs of adolescent girls are falling through the gaps of the global humanitarian response. It is clear that in conflict and crisis-affected settings, adolescent girls are at increased risk of a number of horrors which result in a greater need for sexual and reproductive health services due to unwanted pregnancies, STIs and unsafe abortions. Some 507 girls and women die every day in humanitarian contexts due to childbirth or pregnancy-related complications. The World Health Organization states that the risk of pregnancy-related death for adolescent girls is twice as high for those aged 15-19 and five times as high for those age 10-14 compared with a woman in her twenties.
Access to services and information is extremely challenging in humanitarian settings and is often inadequate and poor. Limits to girls’ mobility are often intensified and access is dependent on adults accompanying them to any safe space or health clinic where services may be provided. Twenty-six per cent of the adolescent girls interviewed by Plan International for its research reported having considered suicide at least once in the past 12 months. What was the outcome of the conference with reference to this specific sector of need? Can the Minister update us on how DfID is working across outward-facing departments such as the FCO, the DIT and the MoD regarding joint country plans? How many of them are gender-proofed for these issues?
Finally, as we have heard, it will be very difficult to empower women without them having power over their own bodies and the ability to control the number of children they have. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for her work in this area. It is estimated that each year worldwide, more than 200 million women want to avoid pregnancy but have no access to modern contraception and that 25 million unsafe abortions take place. The rollback on this from the US and others has to be resisted at all costs. It is an attack on women across the world. I was glad to hear from my noble friend the Minister that the UK will continue to support the work. We need to stand strong on this.
I realise that there are many subjects, such as the importance of girls’ education, that I have not touched upon. There is much in the work of the UK that we should be enormously proud of, such as the Girls’ Education Challenge, but so much more still needs to be done. Perhaps I may ask the Minister how much of our total aid goes to women’s NGOs or women’s organisations based in developing countries. It is often these smaller organisations working on the ground which can make a big difference. Can we make sure that we are working more on prevention rather than cure, and thus truly remain a leader in this field as we push towards the SDGs?