Yemen: Giving Peace a Chance (International Relations Committee Report)

Baroness Anelay of St Johns Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Howell for setting out so clearly the main points that underpin our report and recommendations. It was such a pleasure to serve on the committee under his chairmanship. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, just said, this is a timely debate, coming just a week after the Foreign Office and DfID set out their joint statement on the fourth anniversary of the intervention by the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen conflict.

I shall focus today on the impact of the war on women and girls, who have been disproportionately affected by the conflict and the humanitarian crisis, and the role they could play in the peace process. I welcome the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, on the peace process. The International Committee of the Red Cross says:

“80% of Yemen’s population rely on aid to survive. Yemen’s entire economic system has collapsed. This can’t be substituted by humanitarian organisations”.


Of course, it is right, but humanitarian assistance is vital today for the very survival of Yemenis. I congratulate the Government on their contributions to humanitarian aid in Yemen. Can the Minister update the House today on the result of the recent pledging conference in Geneva? What have other European Union countries pledged? Have they matched the UK’s good example?

I am grateful to the International Rescue Committee for its written briefing on the humanitarian concerns and to Ciarán Donnelly, the IRC’s vice-president for international programmes, for his presentation to the joint meeting of the APPGs on Women, Peace and Security and Yemen last month. I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was able to attend and give a presentation of the committee’s short report.

While all Yemenis are clearly affected by the war, women and girls are bearing the burden. This is particularly evident in the context of the country’s malnutrition crisis, to which other noble Lords have referred. Some 2 million children and more than 1 million pregnant women and new mothers are acutely malnourished. The war has also exacerbated pre-existing inequalities and vulnerabilities for women and girls. Incidents of gender-based violence have increased by more than 63% since before the conflict started. The rate of early and forced marriage of girls has risen dramatically, tripling since 2015.The breakdown of public services is having a major impact on women’s ability to gain access to healthcare. Only 35% of maternal and new-born health services are fully functional. Health services that are available are simply not equipped, staffed or trained to deal with the needs of women and girls affected by violence.

Does the Minister agree that it is important for the UK and other humanitarian actors to increase the priority given to the needs of women and girls, paying specific attention to preventing and responding to gender-based violence and to ensuring better access to maternal healthcare? If so, what action do the Government intend to take? For example, will they increase dedicated funding to end violence against women and girls? Will they press for the UNFPA’s Yemen humanitarian response plans to be fully funded? Will the UK encourage the UN to appoint a gender-based violence adviser to be based in Yemen to be responsible for ensuring that a gender perspective is applied to assessments and that UN co-ordination on gender-based violence is improved across the work of UNICEF and UNHCR?

As our report makes clear, we commend the Government for their ongoing humanitarian contribution and the work of DfID and British volunteers who risk their lives every day to deliver assistance, but we can do more to help to resolve the crisis. We could, for example, put our weight behind the UN peace process in new and imaginative ways. I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to our committee’s recommendation, at paragraph 69 of the report, that the UK,

“should consider appointing a Special Representative, based in London, to speak to all the parties concerned, both internal and external, to reinforce the efforts of the UN Special Envoy”.

This could provide an impetus to work on including women in the peace process more effectively.

I welcome the fact that the UK has supported the Yemeni Women Pact for Peace and Security to increase women’s leadership and inclusion in the official peace process. The group now has official status as a consultative body for the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy. However, I suspect that they will not sit round the table to negotiate peace until and unless there is a change of attitude among all parties to the conflict. A UK special representative could be an influence for good in shifting the dial.

As long as the voices of Yemeni women are relegated to the periphery, it is unlikely that any peace process will have a lasting effect. To create lasting peace, we need women’s voices. From conflict prevention and conflict resolution to reconciliation and economic recovery post conflict, women’s meaningful participation in peace processes increases by 35% the likelihood that an agreement will last more than 15 years.

Meaningful participation requires that women are at the table when negotiations take place, that women’s interests and lived experiences are fully reflected in peace processes, and that women are equally considered in recovery efforts in the aftermath of conflict. As my noble friend the Minister said last month in New York when he attended the Women for Women International meeting at the Commission on the Status of Women:

“We don’t just want women involved; they have to be involved in conflict resolution ... Let us deliver on this noble objective”.


He was right. How are we going to do that?