International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
That this House takes note of International Women’s Day and the steps being taken to press for progress on gender equality globally.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I hope your Lordships will bear with me one second as I move to my next job, which is a much nicer one.
What a privilege it is to open the International Women’s Day debate. On this important occasion, we come together to recognise and celebrate the achievements of women and girls across the world. This year, International Women’s Day is particularly significant for all of us in this country and in this Parliament. In 2018, we celebrate the centenary of the first British women getting the vote. There is much to celebrate: 100 years on, women are represented at every level of public life; almost a third of all government posts are filled by women; in my own department, the Home Office, over half the Ministers are women, including the Home Secretary; and of course, we have our second ever female Prime Minister.
Just last year, Cressida Dick was appointed the first woman Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, became the first woman President of the Supreme Court. To add to this, Sarah Clarke was chosen to be the first female Black Rod in 650 years and Dany Cotton became the first female commissioner of the London fire brigade. We also saw Jodie Whittaker regenerate to become the first female Doctor Who; are we soon to see the first female James Bond? But although this is a day to celebrate the achievements of women, we must also recognise the challenges and prejudice which women and girls face, both at home and across the world. In the spirit of this year’s International Women’s Day theme we must continue to “press for progress” to accelerate gender equality. We must not be complacent and believe that this struggle has been consigned to the past.
Just as the Suffragettes, Suffragists and their supporters stood side by side in solidarity to fight for the right for women to cast their ballot 100 years ago, we have witnessed in the past year a global movement of women once again coming together to call out injustice. Women from all walks of life have issued a rallying cry, calling time on sexual harassment, violence against women, unequal pay and discrimination. We must capitalise on the momentum of campaigns such as the #MeToo movement to accelerate the drive towards equality for all.
The Government have been making great strides to build on the work of countless Members on all sides of both Houses. The UK has a proud history of playing a central role in securing change for women and girls. We are well respected internationally for our world-leading policy and legislation on equalities. However, outside the UK many women and girls still do not have the opportunities and choices they deserve, whether due to cultural expectations, poverty, conflict, or a combination of all three.
We know that there is a crucial role for us to play to end injustice both at home and abroad, and this country already does great work internationally to ensure gender equality reaches all corners of the globe. The UK was instrumental in securing agreement for dedicated targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment within the sustainable development goals. Right now, as I speak, UK Aid is having a significant impact on the lives of millions of women and girls across the globe. To name but a few examples, UK Aid has supported over 6,000 communities across 16 countries to make public commitments to end female genital mutilation, representing 18 million people. UK Aid has also enabled 8.5 million women to access modern methods of family planning over five years.
Yesterday, the Department for International Development launched its new Strategic Vision for Gender Equality. This sets out the UK’s global leadership in securing, with our partners, the rights of all girls and women around the world, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states and in humanitarian and protracted crises. These are all great achievements but there is still more to be done to achieve gender equality and improve the lives of women and girls around the world.
Globally, one in three women are beaten or sexually abused in their lifetime. We hear so many statistics in this Chamber every day, we risk becoming desensitised to the horrific facts; we must do everything in our power to ensure we do not. Imagine looking at a class of young girls, knowing that one-third of them will face physical or sexual violence over the course of their lives. That cannot go on. Protecting women and girls from violence and supporting victims is an absolute priority, whether they suffer violence in their communities, in relationships or online.
The UK is leading the way internationally but we know there is more to do. That is why we have today announced that we are consulting on our programme of work to tackle domestic abuse. This consultation will shape the response to domestic abuse at every stage, from prevention through to rehabilitation, and reinforces the Government’s aim to make domestic abuse everybody’s business. By consulting, we aim to harness the knowledge and expertise of victims and survivors, charities, specialist organisations and experts, and professionals across policing, criminal justice, health, welfare, education and local authorities—those who deal with these issues every day.
Part of what we are consulting on is a domestic abuse Bill that aims to better protect and support victims, recognise the lifelong impact domestic abuse has on children and make sure that agencies effectively respond to domestic abuse. The Bill will create a domestic abuse commissioner in law to stand up for victims and survivors and hold the system to account. It will also create a new domestic abuse protection order regime to create a clearer pathway of protection for victims; and it will make sure that if abusive behaviour involves a child, the court can hand down a sentence that reflects the devastating lifelong impact that abuse has. The Government have also announced today how additional funding for domestic abuse will be spent. This includes £8 million to support children who witness domestic abuse, £2 million to improve the health response to domestic abuse and £2 million to support female offenders, who are often victims of domestic abuse.
Internationally, we are generating world-leading evidence on what works to prevent violence before it starts through our £25 million What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls programme. We are also contributing £8 million to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. In 2015 alone the fund reached over 1 million people.
Another threat facing many women around the world is unsafe pregnancy. Every two minutes a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth—that is five women during the time I have been speaking. The majority of these deaths are preventable. What is more, hundreds of millions of women in developing countries do not have access to modern contraception. In the summer of 2017, this Government hosted a family planning summit to accelerate global progress and reinforce the UK’s global commitments to give 120 million more women and girls access to contraception. Our ambition is that all women around the world can access quality care, and we will continue to provide bold and brave leadership by developing important strategic relationships and international summits, and generating world-class evidence and research.
To make progress on these important issues, we need to continue the fight for women’s voices to be heard. Equal political representation ensures that parliaments globally represent the needs and issues of their citizens. We support women’s political representation around the world through a number of programmes. For example, in Pakistan, our support to the 2013 election helped many more women to register as voters, with many going on to vote for the first time ever. It also brought national attention to the 8 million women missing from the electoral roll.
Education is crucial if we want to ensure that women and girls are engaged and active in political and public life. In this country, girls tend to perform well at school. In fact, they regularly outperform their male counterparts. However, around the world, 65 million girls aged between five and 15 are not in school—the equivalent of almost the entire UK population. Education is a critical tool to tackle injustice and build a more equal society. It provides girls with the space to develop their own thoughts and opinions, and most importantly their voices. This Government have championed girls’ education across the world. The Foreign Secretary has made girls’ education a foreign policy priority and appointed a special envoy on gender equality to lead this work. Moreover, our country programmes between 2015 and 2017 supported at least 3.3 million girls around the world to get a good education.
Education is important but we know it is not enough in itself to ensure gender equality in the workplace. For women to have equal opportunities to men at work, employers need to take action, and we all need to challenge harmful social norms that can hold women back. We want the UK to lead the way for gender equality in the workplace. Research has shown that companies with more diverse workforces perform better than their counterparts. The employment rate for women is at a joint record high of 70.8%, and we need to build on this to make the most of women’s skills, talents and potential. To tackle the gender pay gap we have introduced world-leading regulations requiring organisations with 250 or more employees to report their gap. These regulations will not only drive employers to calculate and report their gender pay gaps but shine a light on the factors driving the gaps, thereby encouraging and enabling employers to take action to close them.
Working with our international friends is essential in making progress. Over the past year we agreed a roadmap for gender equality with the other G7 countries. We have taken extra steps to strengthen our collaboration with Canada, following the Prime Minister’s visit in Ottawa last September. The Government Equalities Office signed a memorandum of understanding with the All-China Women’s Federation. Next month, women’s empowerment and girls’ education will be among the key issues to be discussed at the Commonwealth summit in London.
I conclude by thanking everyone who will speak in this debate and I look forward to hearing some of the contributions.