Afghanistan

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord knows better than I do the very complicated links between Pakistan and Afghanistan and between the Pakistani military and what happens in Afghanistan. I will not go into that at the present moment; I would welcome a discussion with him about how Pakistan developments and Afghan developments interconnect.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister reassure me that the voices of Afghan women are actually going to be heard at the conference, not just at an associate conference? In all the previous conferences, they have not been allowed to participate fully, so I would like the Minister’s reassurance that this will not happen at this London conference.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I cannot entirely give that assurance. Afghanistan is not the only country in which the voices of women are not easy to get through, particularly when Governments are involved. I can think of a number of other Middle Eastern countries. I would simply remark that, at President Ghani’s inauguration, as noble Lords might know, his wife appeared for the first time as part of the inauguration. These are small but useful steps forward.

South Sudan

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 28th July 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that any future peace settlement in South Sudan is inclusive.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we have made clear to all parties in South Sudan the need to support an inclusive peace settlement, through high-level messaging from UK Ministers and through the close engagement of the UK’s special envoy to the South Sudan peace talks. We have also directly supported efforts to ensure that South Sudanese civil society is engaged, notably through our backing for the IGAD-led symposium in June. We welcome the announcement that peace talks are planned to restart on 30 July. The UK will continue to press for an inclusive outcome.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. I gather that the situation in South Sudan is absolutely dire at the moment. There is acute food insecurity, about 1.4 million people have fled their homes and there are around 4 million who need acute humanitarian assistance. Many of them are women who have fled with their children. I gather that there are very high levels of sexual violence and that women and girl children are particularly vulnerable. Can the Minister please assure me that particular attention will be paid to the women’s concerns and that their voices will be heard at the peace talks?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the situation is dreadful. Many of those who have fled their homes have therefore missed the planting season, which means that there is a real possibility of very substantial famine in six to nine months’ time. We should in no sense underestimate how serious the situation is. Of course, it is not simply one conflict; there are all sorts of overlapping local and trans-border conflicts that affect South Sudan. The Government are fully engaged. We are glad to see that UNMISS, in its assistance to refugee camps, is paying special attention to the need to protect women and children, but we are conscious that many are at risk.

Egypt: Human Rights

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this debate. The terrible events and strife in Syria, and now in Iraq, have somewhat swung the media spotlight away from Egypt, leaving an impression, after last month’s democratic presidential election, that the country has emerged from difficult years. However, I was personally rather abruptly shaken out of this view when I met an Egyptian contact at the recent Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. She painted a very different picture of what has really been happening in Egypt this past year. I have never known her to be so anxious—indeed, frightened—about what is happening. She described a situation where security has deteriorated and a suppressive authoritarian culture has been imposed. People are terrified to speak out and any opposition is mercilessly crushed. I shall share with noble Lords some examples she provided and also draw their attention to the plight of women in particular.

Many noble Lords know that I champion the rights of women in developing and conflict countries. Human Rights Watch has long reported that Egyptian women are underrepresented in public life and face endemic levels of sexual and gender-based violence, with the authorities failing to take substantive action to acknowledge the problem or combat it. This adds immense fear and difficulty to women’s daily lives.

In 2011, I visited Egypt with Plan International and saw projects in the poorest parts of Cairo. What I saw was truly shocking. FGM is prevalent. I was told that 91% of women had undergone it, although it is illegal. It is hard to prosecute and is a taboo subject in their society. Most of the women I met were illiterate. There was terrible poverty, which meant early marriage was prevalent, with girls aged 13 to 15 being removed from education, if they were receiving it at all. There was also a market in child brides. Girls were effectively being sold to men who came from the Gulf. They often bored of the girls after a few months and just threw them out. Some of them were already pregnant.

Positively, there was a women’s movement, with a strong women’s body, the National Council for Women of Egypt, and women were starting to speak out. During the revolution in 2011, women stood shoulder to shoulder with men in Tahrir Square to topple Mubarak’s dictatorship. However, these women paid a price, being verbally abused and harassed by male protesters. A few were arrested and subjected to “virginity tests” because they had camped out in tents alongside male protestors. The Arab spring frustratingly brought with it a fundamentalist credo that these burgeoning women’s rights belonged with the ousted dictators and that women in leadership roles was un-Islamic. Therefore in the elections that followed, sweeping the Muslim Brotherhood to power, women’s rights were proactively downgraded. Despite this, during demonstrations last year, women bravely continued to participate, but there was a higher price, a wave of sexual violence, with more than 100 attacks reported in Tahrir Square alone.

I speak about the situation for women because women’s rights are part of human rights and must be given equal consideration, more so when such gender- based abuses are endemic in a country. Creating a strong and resilient women’s civil society is the cornerstone to addressing human rights abuses as a whole.

There is a sliver of light, as on paper there have been some legal developments under the new Government. On 10 June, they approved a law that punishes sexual assault. Although the newly drafted constitution shows signs of improvement compared to its predecessor, when noble Lords consider the wider human rights context being debated today, I expect they will join me in being doubtful as to whether President al-Sisi is the right person to implement these changes effectively. Indeed, he was the senior general who defended the army’s policy of subjecting female detainees to “virginity tests”.

So, I return to the voice of my fearful contact. She told me that independent local NGOs daily verifying data from local sources say that in the six months from July 2013 to 31 January 2014, 3,248 people have been killed on protests, in detention and during police raids. She spoke of the mass arrests which we have already heard about, the 44,163 Egyptian citizens who were arrested between 3 July 2013 and 15 May 2014. More than 9,000 of them have now stood trial. I say “trial”, but in reality there appears to have been an abandonment of democratic legal process. There has been a renewal of pretrial detention orders with people, including children, illegally held for months. Mass trials are resulting in lengthy prison sentences or death penalties, as we have already heard. In one case, 554 Egyptians were sentenced to death, most of them in absentia. The Henry Jackson Society informs me that prosecutors fail to investigate the security forces for the killing of protesters. Not a single police officer has stood trial. Meanwhile, I understand dozens of people have disappeared since July 2013. Savage torture and sexual assault have been reported by 79 protesters held in Abu Zaabal prison after a recent mass arrest and over 100 in Wadi al-Natrun.

My contact reported a worrying clampdown on the press and free speech. On 3 July 2013, at least six TV stations were shut down. Now, only TV stations owned by businessmen supportive of al-Sisi are allowed to work. Local NGOs report that around 27 journalists are currently detained. Dozens of people are similarly detained simply for possessing flyers with opposition slogans.

Death, illegal arrest, detention, a compromised legal process, torture, the repression of free speech and the repression of women are an intolerable situation. Today I join the call for Egypt’s Government to make their human rights record a top priority. But can we have any real hope that there will be any political will for this? I hope that the Minister may offer some reassurance about the situation in Egypt and indicate what influence the UK Government will be able to exert to address the human rights record there.

UK National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, for securing this debate. I know that she has a long history of support for UN Security Council Resolution 1325. I am glad that in this debate we have the opportunity to highlight the important issues while Her Majesty’s Government are in the process of developing the next UK national action plan. I declare my interests as the chair of the advisory board of GAPS and a member of the steering board of the Foreign Secretary’s PSVI initiative.

The UK is a world leader in setting the women, peace and security agenda and played a crucial role in ensuring that UNSCR 1325 ever came into being. This resolution addresses both the impact of conflict on women, and the vital role that women do and should play in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and sustainable peace. This includes women’s role in preventing conflict, preventing violence against women, protection of women, and women’s social, economic and political participation. The new UK NAP provides a key opportunity for the UK to commit to an ambitious plan to take this forward.

Women’s participation in peace processes is a key element of UNSCR 1325, yet almost 14 years after its adoption there is still little progress in this area. Over the past 25 years only one in 40 peace signatories has been a woman, and only 12 out of 585 peace accords have referred to women’s needs. Therefore, I pay enormous tribute to our Foreign Secretary for speaking out so strongly about including Syrian women at the Geneva II peace process and his groundbreaking work through the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative that is making a huge impact with leaders around the world.

The next two years are key for women, peace and security both domestically and internationally, with the preventing sexual violence summit in June, the NATO summit in September, international drawdown of NATO troops from Afghanistan, the post-2015 framework, and the 15th anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 in October 2015. This new NAP gives an excellent opportunity for Her Majesty’s Government to consolidate and bring their women, peace and security agenda under one framework, maximising opportunities to ensure that women are at the heart of conflict prevention, peacebuilding and recovery.

Domestically, government co-ordination is central to enable the UK to meet its international women, peace and security commitments. To guarantee consistency of policy, the Government need a more joined-up approach to ensuring that all departmental policies and initiatives stem from the NAP, including policies relating to violence against women and girls, the PSVI and DfID’s call to action on violence against women and girls in emergencies.

Stronger mechanisms to mainstream gender and women, peace and security internally within departments need to be established, and gender training needs to be mandatory for some jobs in the UK and overseas. The Ministry of Defence has not yet developed distinct policies and training in line with UN Resolution 1325, and when the UK trains other national armed forces, all training should include women, peace and security. The PSVI summit in June will provide a good opportunity for the MoD to announce developments in this area, and for it to display its commitment to the women, peace and security agenda and preventing sexual violence on a global stage. At a country level, commitments to women, peace and security need to be reflected in FCO country business plans and DfID operational plans, and those commitments should be outlined in the new NAP.

As has already been mentioned, there is concern that the NAP has no dedicated funding. Neither do the Government currently use any systems to monitor their funding on this. For example, we know that the UK has women, peace and security programmes in many conflict-affected countries but we do not know how the UK prioritises this in its funding, and the use of the OECD gender marker would enable this.

As has already been mentioned, in-country consultation through talking to women and girls at grass roots is essential to ensure that the UK’s NAP and women, peace and security priorities reflect the needs of women and girls in conflict-affected and fragile environments. The new NAP should contain a plan for ongoing consultations in its focus countries. Most importantly, the NAP should acknowledge the role of local women’s rights organisations in prevention of conflict and violence against women, and their contribution to peacebuilding. Thus the NAP should commit to ensuring women’s civil society organisations have access to necessary funding including for campaigning and advocacy. This will transform their role and status so that they can fully participate in their community and national peacebuilding.

Monitoring and evaluation of the NAP is also important and the new NAP indicators should demonstrate impact, rather than just output, to enable identification of where its programming, systems and policies are effective, and where changes are required. The annual NAP report to Parliament is key and I hope that my noble friend the Minister can confirm that this will continue under the new NAP.

I am pleased to understand that Afghanistan remains a focus country, as women’s rights there was one of the reasons for our engagement, and we must not allow the gains that have been made for women there to roll back. The NAP provides an opportunity for the Government to demonstrate commitment to women’s rights in Afghanistan and support to Afghan women who so desperately need it. It is also essential that women from Afghanistan are included in the NATO summit in September so that their views are heard and that security for women in Afghanistan is not forgotten as NATO withdraws.

In conclusion, I congratulate the Government on all that they are doing on the women, peace and security agenda. This NAP is an excellent opportunity to push forward this work and to demonstrate the UK’s strong commitment, through funding programmes and ways of working, to ensure women truly are at the heart of conflict prevention, peacebuilding and recovery.