Overseas Development Assistance: Gender-based Violence

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. In the UK we have many excellent small charities that deliver these vital services, including in respect of gender-based violence. DfID has a small charities challenge fund which was developed to ensure it can support these charities, and its posts on the ground are working to help identify them. A review process is ongoing. Applications that will address the impact of Covid-19 are being prioritised and a further round will be opened in the next few weeks.

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, widows often face extreme forms of violence due to being older and widowed. They also face particular discrimination and lack access to various rights, including property rights. Overseas development assistance spending on addressing gender-based violence does not make specific reference to older women or widows. During this period of isolation to stop the spread of Covid-19, older women face increased risks of domestic and gender-based violence. There are 962 million older people living in low and middle-income countries. Those aged 60 and over account for more than 95% of the deaths in Europe from Covid-19. Will the Government make specific amounts of aid and help available to older women, and indeed to widows of all ages?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness says, older people will be disproportionately impacted, and sadly that includes widows. We are working with our humanitarian partners to ensure that the most vulnerable, including older women and widows, are reached and supported.

International Widows Day

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, on securing this debate to mark International Widows Day this year, and on the work of his foundation promoting the cause of widows all around the world, especially in developing nations. As we have heard, the number of widows is quite staggering, and it is increasing sadly, largely due to conflict. The UN estimates that there are 285 million widowed women, of whom about a third live in deep poverty. The Loomba Foundation estimates that 585 million children are dependent on widows.

I join the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, in paying tribute to the work of Margaret Owen, the brilliant campaigner, through her charity Widows for Peace through Democracy, and also pay tribute to HelpAge International for its development work on behalf of older people, including many widows.

In my brief remarks, I will focus on older and half-widows. I was very moved to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, talking about the terrible situation in Kashmir. Other speakers have said that we should dispel the myth that widows are always older women. Many are of course very young indeed, though the problems faced by far too many—especially after war or any form of conflict—are very similar regardless of age.

Ongoing conflicts around the world cause widows to be deprived, as we have heard, of even their most basic rights to health, education and dignity. Even though they are the most affected by conflict, in almost all situations they still have no role in peacebuilding. They need to be represented at all peace tables. One of our roles is to work to ensure that this happens. Can the Minister reassure us that a huge effort is being made to ensure this is the case?

Widowhood should be addressed by the Government as an urgent human rights issue. The reason is simple: widowhood affects all of society, since unsupported widows become a root cause of poverty across the generations, increasing the inequalities that fuel instability and conflict. A widow whose life is without hope will have children whose lives are likely to be the same, or even worse. As the UN has found, widows’ lack of inheritance rights might lead to the loss of their home as well as increased stigma and isolation within their community. Widows often have reduced legal rights as well, especially over property: the UN estimates that 40% of nations do not treat men and women equally. We know that widows can fall victim to detrimental cultural practices, extending to forcible remarriage, rape and allegations of witchcraft.

More recently, WPD has been campaigning on the neglected plight of the uncounted millions of half-widows—the wives of the forcibly disappeared or missing, as the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, told us. The legal status of these women, mainly in conflict-afflicted countries, is ambiguous and they have no legal protection or rights, for example to inheritance, land, or pensions. Very often, they cannot remarry. WPD estimates that in Colombia alone there are 86,000 missing men, while in Sri Lanka there are 40,000. In other fragile and conflict-afflicted states, there are many more and their half-widows encounter insurmountable obstacles in attempting to get the information from the authorities to which they are entitled. They are unable to rebuild their lives or even to grieve properly. I hope the Minister can assure me that the work which the Government have been doing with NGOs, the UN and the World Bank to improve the statistical information available on widows includes all that we can collect on half-widows.

It is right for this House, as we did last year on 28 June, to mark International Widows Day. I add my voice to this debate as a recently widowed woman.

Deceased Individuals: Allegations

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I could not disagree with anything that the right reverend Prelate says. We have had many debates on this issue, and the College of Policing recently updated its guidance on naming suspects. Of course, the media have named suspects in the past, and that is another matter altogether, but the guidance has been updated, and the College of Policing is also refreshing its guidance to provide clarity on naming of deceased individuals.

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, does not the Minister agree that there could be a fairly simple rule, which would be not to publicise the name of anybody in such an event and not to accuse somebody until they are charged?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Until someone is charged, they cannot be accused, only questioned, in my limited knowledge of the law. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made an eloquent argument that in some cases anonymity might prevent questioning and interviews from taking place and may be to the benefit of someone who may be guilty.

EU: Healthcare

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross]

My Lords, I basically support many of the aims of the working time directive. None of us wants to see junior doctors exploited or working until they are so tired that they are a danger to the patients for whom they care.

The two judgments in SiMAP and Jaeger were most unfortunate and in fact skewed the working time directive in a very bad way. The result has perhaps been damaging to one very large group of patients—frail older people, who form a quarter of the patients in our hospitals. As we know, some tasks previously carried out by doctors were understandably handed over to nursing staff. This can be a good thing, but in many cases what was previously carried out by nurses has been handed on to healthcare assistants. Healthcare assistants are largely untrained, are not regulated and do not always have the competences that are needed. We know, sadly, that much basic care, such as help with feeding, adequate nutrition and hydration, and even basic toileting, has not been carried out well and has had dreadful consequences, which unfortunately we read about in the press all the time.

These very frail patients—a quarter of the patients whom we treat—often suffer from some form of cognitive loss or dementia. They need to be cared for by people whom they understand and feel they can trust, and language is very important in this. We must be certain that these patients feel safe with the people who are caring for them. Therefore, we need language testing by regulators to make sure that the standard of care that our frail patients receive respects their dignity and human rights, and we must work towards that.

International Widows Day

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend on the vital work of the Loomba Foundation in supporting widows. I declare an interest as a trustee of one of my noble friend’s charitable organisations. The UK takes a leadership role through our diplomatic and development work in supporting poor and vulnerable women and promoting their economic, social and political empowerment. We support widows through broader programmes working on women’s empowerment, asset ownership and inheritance rights, and, through this, the targeting of cash-transfer programmes. The Government are targeting all women, including widows.

[Baroness Greengross]

Widows in post-conflict situations, particularly in many countries in Africa and the Middle East, are in a particularly vulnerable position. Some of the widows are extremely young, many are in reality punished for the death of their husbands, and their future is very bleak. Will the Minister assure us that their needs will be taken fully into consideration?

Violence Against Women

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross]

My Lords, I shall look briefly at the situation in this country and then concentrate on older women and widows of all ages in many countries across the world. I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, who does so much to champion the cause of women at all times. It is a privilege to take part in this debate.

We know, as my noble friend Lady Howe clarified, that 3 million women experience violence every year in this country and that many more live with the legacy of abuse that they experienced in the past. We know that violence can also cause lasting psychological damage and that sexual offences bring the risk of HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases and forced pregnancies. Following that, I am sure the Minister is aware that it is estimated that violence against women costs this country £40 billion every year. From a purely economic perspective, let alone on any moral or societal grounds, the rising incidence of violence against women is totally unsustainable. I add my voice to the others here today that seek urgent action on all aspects of this important matter from the Government.

I turn to older women. Figures were produced by Help the Aged some time ago, in 2004, which showed that 20 per cent of elder abuse reported on its helpline was physical. Forty-four per cent of people calling the helpline reported more than one type of abuse occurring simultaneously. The vast majority—67 per cent—of people who reported violent abuse were women. The main recommendation following that report was that a comprehensive prevalence study was needed to establish the extent and impact of elder abuse throughout the UK. I could not find this report so I am not sure whether the prevalence study ever took place. I ask the Minister whether the Government have any plans to undertake a survey of this type or, if it has been done, to update the existing figures. This would help enormously, enabling us to eradicate a particularly disturbing form of violence.

I turn to the violence experienced by widows in particular. Of all the different categories of women affected by violence, this one is particularly vulnerable, but it is also notably ignored by Governments and the international community. Although there is very little research or data, we know through NGOs—in particular, I know through Widows for Peace through Democracy, to which I am most grateful for briefing me—that millions of widows of all ages, including wives of the missing and their daughters, suffer extreme forms of physical, sexual and psychological violence at the hands of both family members and the community at large. For example, in Africa, widows may be victims of harmful traditional practices, such as mourning and burial rites, including ritual cleansing by sex; forced widow inheritance, where a widow is forced to remarry with a husband’s relative; and violence meted out in the context of inheritance and property disputes.

However, the worst violence to widows occurs in conflict and post-conflict environments. Widows and their daughters are often targeted for rape, sexual mutilation and forced prostitution since they have no man to protect them as they struggle to survive. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Sri Lanka, for example, this has been very noticeable. In Sri Lanka, more than 31,000 Tamil widows are aged under 30 and many of them are gang raped. In the DRC, hundreds of thousands of widows are rape victims, as they were in Rwanda during the genocide. In Nepal, many young widows of the conflict have been raped by their male relatives. In Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, widows are still the poorest of the poor and routinely targeted for rape and forced prostitution. In many countries in Africa we know that widows are killed as witches, particularly in relation to the AIDS pandemic. In Afghanistan and Iraq, which I have mentioned, widows—increasing in number on a daily basis—experience violence, especially sexual violence, within and outside the family.

This issue is important because, as we know, these widows are the sole supporters of families and future generations, and they have an important role to play in development and peace-building. They need to be protected from violence so that they can care for and educate their children. We have already heard about the huge importance of education.

[Lord Judd]

The noble Baroness makes a profoundly important point. Would she agree that one of the grave implications of what she is talking about is that there is increasing evidence that violence against women is being used as a deliberate war weapon in conflict, as is rape? The trouble is that international law has not yet recognised this.

[Baroness Greengross]

I thank the noble Lord for that comment; I agree completely. I hope that the whole House will agree that this is an important issue which should be prioritised in our policies—for example in relation to our national action plans for the implementation of UNSCRs 1325 and 1890, which concern sexual violence against women in war. I agree completely. I hope the Minister can assure me that the Government will ensure that this issue is a priority that will not be overlooked.

Women in Society

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the Minister’s speech and her obvious commitment to equality and fairness for women throughout their lives. I have had the pleasure of speaking with her and learning from her important experience in the care sector, which I would think is in fact an industry peopled exclusively by women, so that was very relevant to the debate we are having. My brief comments will be made in the light of my role as a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The noble Baroness emphasised the very difficult times that we are living through and the necessity of spending cuts, which I do not dispute at all. In practice, however, it means that decision-makers at all levels, national and local, should look closely at the effects their financial decisions might have on women and, indeed, on other vulnerable groups before going ahead with reorganising or reducing services. Doing that should help public authorities to achieve the Government’s own commitment to,

“limit as far as possible the impact of reductions in spending on the most vulnerable in society”.

Yet a recent House of Commons Library research report assessed the distribution between women and men of the £8 billion raised by the Budget’s changes in direct taxes and benefits. It found that £5.8 billion will be paid by women and only £2.2 billion by men. I do not know whether that could be said to be fair. Also, a report from the UK Women’s Budget Group, published this June, states that low-income mothers are the managers and shock absorbers of poverty and will be the most negatively affected by the recently announced budget cuts. Women from black and minority ethnic groups, it said, will be particularly hard hit as 40 per cent of them live in poor households.

The commission has concerns that women may be harder hit by spending cuts because they use public services more intensively than men to meet their own needs and the needs associated with their caring responsibilities. We have heard today about the differential in pay and we know that women are, on average, paid 20.2 per cent less per hour than men. That gap is higher in the private sector than the public and in certain sectors of employment such as the financial services industry. Going further along the life course, female pensioners currently have lower incomes than male pensioners, so they are at greater risk of poverty and therefore more reliant on means-tested benefits.

The commission’s work on older women in particular is really limited to the workplace. Higher rates of poverty are experienced by many older women, as we know, because of a lifetime of lower pay—what the Hills report called “cumulative disadvantage”. Because of their greater longevity, there is also a greater need to access care, for while women live longer than men they experience more disability and chronic illness or disease in later life, and have a greater need to call on services such as dementia treatment or those for other chronic, and sometimes terminal, diseases. Overall, women have a greater dependence on public services, so they will be more affected by the current cuts. We need, perhaps, to take account of and drive home the message about the human rights obligations of public authorities, which can help care homes and hospitals to treat older women with dignity and respect, and to put into practice the age discrimination provisions in the Equality Act, ensuring that institutions understand how to meet their obligations and that individuals know how to enforce their rights.

I am very pleased that the Minister representing Her Majesty’s Government gave such full support to the Equality Act. It is important that when public authorities make financial decisions, they are equality-impact assessed and that the impact assessment is carried out when the policy is initiated as a central part of the policy development process. Only by doing that can we be sure that women are treated fairly and in a way that conforms to the Government’s own commitment, as stated by the Minister. I hope that she can make it clear to us that she will abide by that.