International Women's Day

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to be the first of your noble Lordships to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady King, very warmly on her superb, engaging, entertaining, splendid maiden speech. Knowing a little about her illustrious career before joining your Lordships’ House, I knew that we could expect a speech reflecting the passionate commitment of the noble Baroness to fundamental values and passionate advocacy for justice, equality, poverty reduction and human rights. These passions were reflected, inter alia, in her membership of the International Development Select Committee in another place from 1997 to 2001 and her membership of many aid and advocacy organisations, including Oxfam, Amnesty International and UNICEF.

It is said that it was at Haverstock comprehensive school that Oona King first showed political ambition, telling her careers teacher that she wanted to become Prime Minister. Apparently, she was advised to become a librarian instead. I am sure we are all delighted that she stuck to her guns and pursued a political career. Her maiden speech in another place was acclaimed as,

“a truly first-class maiden speech”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/7/97; col. 173.]

I am sure the House will agree that the noble Baroness has achieved a repeat performance, treating us to another truly first-class maiden speech here today. We greatly look forward to benefiting from her passion, commitment and experience on many further occasions.

I now join all other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, on this very timely debate, providing an opportunity to highlight some of the challenges confronting women today, as well as some of the initiatives, especially those undertaken by women, to address them. I will focus on challenges confronting women in just one part of the world, women who are largely off the radar screen of international awareness; those who live in the regions in Burma which I visited last week, the Shan, Karen and Karenni states. Their challenges and their suffering are replicated in many other parts of the world, especially areas affected by war and the aftermath of conflict.

The ethnic nationals of Burma, including the Shan, Karen, Karenni, Chin, Rohingya and Kachin peoples, comprise 40 per cent of the total population. Last week colleagues from Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust and I met the Shan leadership and were informed that the situation for the Shan people remains dire, as also for their Karen and Karenni neighbours. Military offensives by the brutal ruling military junta, the Orwellian-named State Peace and Development Council, continue unabated and have forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee from their homes into hiding or exile. Women are especially vulnerable, particularly those who are pregnant or caring for young children or the elderly, as they suffer the acute deprivations of life in hiding in the jungle. Unable to build shelters or light fires for fear of being seen by SPDC soldiers, they are constantly wet in the rainy season and suffer from severe cold at night. They live in constant fear of capture and abuse. A 17-year-old girl from Central Shan State told us:

“SPDC military troops would often come to my village. One day they caught my father, beat him and forced him to work for them as a porter. My dad never came home again. My mother was pregnant. We were forced to leave the village and my mum only lived for five days, then she died. I was on my own”.

I have recorded literally hundreds of such tragic stories, but in this centenary year of International Women’s Day, it is important also to appreciate responses by women with initiatives to alleviate suffering and to remedy root causes.

One example of such a response is the excellent organisation SWAN, the Shan Women’s Action Network, which undertakes advocacy and provides aid. For example, SWAN published Licence to Rape, a well researched document that exposed the SPDC’s policy of the use of rape as a weapon of war. SWAN has established several programmes to provide help for women, including crisis support and maternal and child health programmes. We visited some of its programmes, which we are privileged to support, and we are always deeply impressed by the dedication, courage and professionalism of the very committed women who give their lives—and indeed often risk their lives—to help women suffering in so many ways from the inhuman policies of the Burmese military junta.

I congratulate the Secretary of State for International Development on the recent reviews. In so doing, I express appreciation of DfID’s funding for SWAN and the retention of Burma as a country that DfID will continue to support. Will DfID also continue to support cross-border aid for displaced people suffering inside Burma? The previous reassurance on this issue gave great comfort to the thousands of people suffering inside that tragic land, and such help is still greatly needed as SPDC offensives continue and even more civilians will be driven from their villages to become exiles in their own land or to flee into in foreign lands.

This example of the challenges for women in Burma today is just one illustration of the perennial and continuing problems for many women in so many conflict zones in today’s world. The inspirational work of SWAN is just one example of the many responses by women for women that it is appropriate to acknowledge and celebrate in this centenary year of International Women’s Day.