My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come to that firmly when I get to my asks. The international community cannot continue to ignore Kashmir for the whole number of reasons I have outlined.
Let us to turn to the current situation, which has deteriorated sharply since August 2019 when the authoritarian, right-wing Modi Government unilaterally and unconstitutionally revoked articles 370 and 35A. That stripped Jammu and Kashmir of what little autonomy it had, in direct violation of international law, of commitments made to the people of Kashmir and of decades of United Nations resolutions. The consequences were immediate and devastating, with a 150-day communications blackout, mass detentions of political leaders, violent crackdowns across the valley, journalists silenced and civil society dismantled. It transformed communities into open-air prisons.
Families were separated, businesses destroyed, young people denied education and everyday life suffocated under curfews and lockdowns. Nearly six years on, the prosperity and normality that was promised never materialised. Instead, we see further repression and further deepening of the injustices. Now, with the domicile rules, we are seeing blatant attempts to permanently change the demographics of Kashmir. Let there be no doubt: the right-wing Modi Government have one aim, which is to try to quash the Kashmiri struggle for good.
This is a timely debate, as I said at the beginning. While we mark UN Human Rights Day today, let us be clear that Kashmir’s human rights abuses are not isolated or occasional events; they form a systematic pattern of intimidation and control. Arbitrary detention, custodial torture, forced disappearances and collective punishment continue with impunity. Women have endured gender-based violence at shocking levels, with over 11,000 documented cases since 1989—an appalling statistic that speaks to the use of sexual violence as a weapon of repression.