Millennium Development Goals

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord for securing this debate, but I also express the hope that there will be a longer debate at some stage. Too many of us feel deprived by the short time available to speak, and we would like to talk about this very important subject at length.

I take issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock. I have always agreed with her on most things but at the last summit, under the leadership of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, women were never mentioned as being at the heart of MDGs. This is the first time that the summit papers have mentioned that women are at the heart of MDGs. At the previous summit only Denmark and Liberia said that the MDGs can be met only if we concentrate on women; however, on this occasion every single paragraph has women at the heart of it.

The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, spoke about African agriculture but he did not mention that 70 to 80 per cent of African agriculture is in the hands of women. Once again, unless women are at the heart of the millennium development goals, nothing can change in Africa. The women could be helped to do better through co-operatives, for example. We should look at best practice in other places. In India there are 10 organisations called “self-employed women’s associations”, which are all co-operatives. They all do different things in different parts of India extremely successfully. Why not look at that model and start an agricultural co-operative movement in Africa? Then they would be able to feed not only a few people but maybe the whole of the continent.

I always say that we are hampered in what we want to do for women by some powerful people, one of whom recently visited us—and we paid for his visit. I mind that. It is despicable that an institution has a leader who systematically deprives women of their normal human right to choose whether or not to have a child. I mind the fact that it is an institution that is riddled with child abuse and yet we invite its leader to visit us—and we pay for it. That is a very bad thing.

At every meeting and conference you attend, who stops you from talking about abortion and about women’s sexual health? At the ICDP conference last year, Saudi Arabia and the Catholic Church made us take out the term “women’s sexual health”. What a load of nonsense. What world are we living in? We are not living in Christ’s day and, anyway, they did not have any contraception then. We have to look at our world and go with it. Unless everyone here will stand up and be counted, the lives of the women will not change. It is time we started doing that. I get very upset.

I am tired of hearing about empowerment; I am tired of hearing about equality. Have we got equality in this country? Every time there is a debate everyone shouts, “We do not have equal pay; we do not have equality; we do not have this; we do not have that”. You think that the African women will get equality? No, they will not. Get them food first.