Developing World: Women

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, at the outset, I, too, welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. I look forward to working with her on our shared interest in international development. I also want to pay tribute to the contribution made over many years by the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, to our understanding of the strength and determination shown by women who have been widowed. They need and deserve our deep respect and support. We have heard that in a number of contributions this afternoon.

Too often, women are described as victims, but I would say that they are fighters, survivors and protectors. Recently, women’s groups in Nigeria were able to reach a compromise with oil companies that benefited the whole community. In Afghanistan, I have met women who have shown enormous courage and leadership in very difficult and dangerous circumstances. Women have a finger on the pulse of what their communities need and deserve, and it is women who can and will bring peace and stability to their communities. In every respect, women have a vested interest in the critical objectives of peace, security and reconciliation.

As we have just heard, UN Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security specifies that women must be part of seeking and managing all peace processes, but it remains the case that too often they struggle to secure their right to this role. Can the Minister reassure the House that, as the NGO Saferworld has said, more attention will be given to the conflict prevention aspects of the women, peace and security agenda, including by understanding how gender relates to the underlying drivers of conflict and violence? Regrettably, the fine words that we hear have not often been translated into real and tangible change. Women are too often portrayed as victims instead of being offered the opportunity to be fully integrated into both formal and informal peace processes to actually prevent violent conflict and sustain fragile states.

The fact is that there are examples of fine words that have been translated into real change. In Northern Ireland, South Africa and Rwanda, we can see the difference that engagement with women makes to governance and peace. Women’s engagement is not, as some might claim, with stereotypical soft issues. On the contrary, women can add skills, understanding and experience to the issues, but tragically they often struggle to hold on to their place on the political agenda.

Would the Minister care to comment on the fact that UN Resolution 1325 mandates that all states must ensure women’s full participation in all peace processes? What is the Minister’s assessment of the effectiveness of that mandate so far? Is it not the case that even after the passing of many national and international frameworks, endemic discrimination and gender-based violence remain significant barriers to achieving the 1325 goals? Increasingly, we recognise that such violence against women and girls is a defining characteristic of modern warfare and that women are being targeted as a way for male combatants to humiliate and undermine other male combatants. In many conflicts, rape is used as a weapon of war to humiliate and dominate, and to disrupt social ties. The proof of this is that we have seen 39 active conflicts over the past 10 years, but very few women have been a part of any peace negotiations.

When I see a picture of a large table of people deliberating on how to deal with conflict, I know without looking very hard that it is unlikely that women, who actually are the peacemakers and the activists, will be in that picture. They are generally ignored and will not be sitting at the table. The reality is that this neglects a rich source of skills, insight and energy, and we neglect it at our peril. A shocking statistic is that out of 585 peace treaties drafted in the past two decades, only 16% included any specific reference to women.

Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to see the work of women activists, and I can vouch for their ability to negotiate fairly and effectively. However, women need to be involved not only in post-settlement decision-making but in the nitty-gritty of negotiations aimed at resolving the root causes of conflict. Can the Minister confirm that this is a clear priority for the Government? Simply reiterating the arguments for dealing with violence will not do. It is time that we saw concerted efforts to deal with the underlying causes, which include power imbalances, systemic inequality and the effects of discriminatory social norms, to which other noble Lords have referred.

Finally, a vital element of the discussions currently taking place in New York on a post-2015 development agenda agreement must—unequivocally—include a commitment to eliminate all forms of violence, including sexual violence, by the date the delegates have set themselves of 2030.

Burma: Rohingya

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise the issue of those people who are taking to the seas. There has to be much greater regional co-operation in that area. My right honourable friend Hugo Swire was right to call in the Burmese ambassador to speak to him on issues that concern the rights of people within Burma and what we need to do to address them. As the noble Lord is aware—I know that he also takes a very keen interest in this area—these discussions are ongoing, but we need to continually push hard to ensure that progress is being made. However, he is also right to highlight that the amount of aid we are giving in that country is there to help support a change in approach to helping people in Rakhine and to ensure that their rights are fully recognised.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that forcing desperate people into fleeing by sea is only the latest in a series of ethnic cleansing efforts against the Rohingya people in Burma? When the independent evidence of systematic genocidal cruelty which we heard about earlier is so clear, why do not our Government do what President Obama has done and restore sanctions to at least the level recently renewed by the United States?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, our priority remains to address the immediate humanitarian situation and human rights abuses that are occurring, while we develop more broadly with other partners a comprehensive plan that seeks to address the challenges that are facing that state. It is our responsibility to deliver that, and that is what we are focusing on at the moment.

Millennium Development Goals: Women and Girls

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the United Nations Women analysis of the progress made towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Northover) (LD)]

My Lords, despite many gains, progress across the millennium development goals has been uneven for girls and women. The MDGs did not effectively address the factors which underpin gender inequality. The United Kingdom is pushing for a post-2015 framework that has a strong and explicit commitment to gender equality and that will seek to transform outcomes for girls and women.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her response and agree that we must build upon what has been achieved by the MDGs but acknowledge those goals’ shortcomings up until now, particularly on gender equality, women’s empowerment and violence against women—three major issues which have been neglected. The Minister will be aware that women across the world continue to face economic, social and political exclusion. At the current pace of change, it will take 81 years to reach parity in the workplace and more than 75 years to reach equal pay for work of equal value. Will the Minister clarify whether the Government have responded to the UN Women position paper on the post-2015 development agenda, which advocates a stand-alone goal geared to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment? Has the UK responded to the UN Women proposal that there should be rigorous mainstreaming of gender equality concerns across the other priority areas and goals of the post-2015 agenda?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right to note that very uneven progress. We are indeed committed to the standalone goal and to mainstreaming.

Gender Equality: Developing Nations

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, millions of marginalised girls are literally risking their lives to get a safe, high-quality education. In Pakistan, the schooling of girls has been outlawed by the Taliban. In Afghanistan, girls have been attacked in their classroom and a schoolgirls’ bus was bombed. In Congo, girls have been raped by soldiers on their way to school and, as we know, 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria were abducted by Boko Haram.

Will the Minister tell the House how DfID is supporting the efforts of UNESCO and UNICEF to focus more effectively on marginalised girls, in line with the aim that she just mentioned of leaving no one behind?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right about the risks girls often take in seeking an education. I hope that I can reassure her by saying that one of our focuses now is to try to ensure that the most vulnerable girls and boys are able to get into school safely, and not only to primary school but to progress on to secondary school. The very fact that they can get there is an indication that they have actually succeeded in primary school.

Sudan: Bombardment of Civilians

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

We pressed the Government of Sudan and their armed forces to cease attacks on civilians and to comply with international humanitarian law. We have consistently raised the two areas in the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council and, through our embassy work, we seek to highlight the importance of the rule of law and promote a culture of accountability throughout Sudan. We are working very hard to try to get that across.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, what has been the Security Council’s response to the Human Rights Watch reports of horrific incidents of mass rape in Darfur and the continuing insecurity and impunity in that region? When will al-Bashir and his Janjaweed be called to account? We are now watching a terrible new phase of genocide in Darfur—and, I am afraid, in silence.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness highlights some very grave problems in Sudan, and she will I am sure also know that the UN independent expert on human rights in Sudan is looking at the human rights situation there. We are very concerned that that is taken forward. In terms of sexual violence, she will know that it appears to be an area where rape is being used as a deliberate weapon of war. We are pressing the Sudanese Government to try to take forward protection of civilians, but she will be acutely aware of how challenging that is proving to be.

Ebola

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right that there are models for how this might be taken forward and he is right that there were real risks of a pandemic. The United Kingdom and its NHS workers have actually played a pretty key role in stemming that, so that it did not become a pandemic. Certainly, in terms of the development of vaccines, that is another area that we need to investigate.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, we have known about Ebola for 40 years, yet we still have no vaccine and no cure. Does the Minister agree that the cost of bringing that drug forward and taking it through the necessary regulatory process means that pharmaceutical companies prefer to focus on the diseases of the rich than on poor people’s diseases in Sierra Leone?

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, at the outset I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and to my noble friend Lady Royall for their introduction to this debate. I also recognise, as others have done, the commitment shown by DfID to the principles raised in the debate today and, indeed, the role played by successive Labour Governments.

The reality is that we are living in an age of unprecedented human development, and we celebrate the fact that millions of people are leading a better, more fulfilled and healthy life than their parents did. On every continent, children’s lives are being saved. More are surviving infancy and are being vaccinated against deadly diseases. More are going to school and, as UNICEF and Save the Children confirm, child well-being generally has made real progress. Those who claim that “aid doesn’t work” should, to take just one of countless instances, try saying that to a mother in Africa whose children sleep safely under anti-malarial bed nets directly provided by aid. Aid does work and, as others have said, it is the smart thing to do. Hundreds of children’s lives are saved every day by these nets, paid for by aid. With that reality in mind, the argument has to be that we should do more and do better so that we succeed in underpinning what all noble Lords in this Chamber ultimately seek, which is shared prosperity and security.

The tendency has been to focus too much on income levels instead of key indicators such as health, education and the general provision of basic services. Of course we should recognise that progress has been patchy, but we must also assert that countries such as Congo and Zimbabwe are not the norm. Generally, there has been substantial progress. We must emphasise that people’s lives are longer and better because aid has enabled them to have access to income, education, social protection and better government.

For many years, the UK has been recognised as one of the world’s best and most effective donors, but we know that there is a steep hill to climb if we are to meet the MDG goals which were agreed in 2000. The achievement of full and productive employment with decent work for all, and the ambition to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, has eluded us. More children are in school, but millions are not. The majority of the 58 million children not in school are girls. Gender inequality remains a major propellant of poverty and women’s marginalisation, and a basic cause of under-development.

In 1970, the UK Government committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on development, but it took 43 years for that promise to be delivered. The Bill we are debating today has not been rushed. It is simply a reflection of the generation-old commitment made by one of the world’s richest countries to the world’s poorest people.

The Bill is vital because it is the final opportunity to deliver the 2010 manifesto promises of our three parties, as well as the coalition agreement. In addition, it sends a signal to other developed countries that they, too, must meet their aid targets. Demonstrating our commitment by legislating is a wise, timely and excellent initiative. It will serve to protect the aid budget and increase predictability and accountability. It will also confirm our support for the 97.5% of MPs who were elected on manifestos that supported legislation or have adopted the policy in this Parliament.

Honouring our pledges is the right thing to do because we share an interest in joining together in a world that is stable and secure, with an educated and healthy population. We should applaud the cross-party commitment to keeping our promises to the world’s poorest people. If we take steps to pass the Bill in the remaining time of this Parliament, it will send a strong signal in 2015, which is such an important year for development. All three parties made a commitment in 2010 to enshrine the aid level of 0.7% of GNI, but it has taken five years to put that consensus into practice. It is now time to show that we can and will work together for the greater good.

Developing World: Maternal and Neonatal Mortality

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for introducing this debate and for doing so in such a compelling and expert way.

In large parts of the world, poverty means that great numbers of women die from a lack of family planning, an inability to negotiate the number and spacing of children, the lack of money to pay for skilled birth attendants or emergency obstetric care, and violence. In spite of some welcome progress, it is clear that MDG 5, on reducing maternal mortality and achieving universal access to reproductive health, is far from being fulfilled. However, as affirmed by the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the elimination of preventable maternal mortality is possible in the next decade but it will, clearly, require a major scaling-up of our efforts. Does the Minister agree that sexual and reproductive healthcare for women and girls should be a specific priority, separated from maternal health, so that its allocation and impact can be properly measured? Is the Minister aware that around only 1% of ODA is currently allocated to family planning?

DfID has also committed to,

“enable 10 million more women to access family planning (of which 1 million will be girls aged 15-19)”.

How confident is the Minister that this objective can be met, since only 4,966,000 have been reached to date? Does the Minister agree that, as DfID spending on humanitarian assistance is increasing, it is vital that a comprehensive package is offered in emergency settings, such as conflicts and disasters, and that this should include access to sexual and reproductive health?

The UN high-level panel established to prepare the post-2015 agenda for action estimates that 800 women die every day from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth and, according to the WHO, 99% of those maternal deaths occur in developing countries. In addition, medical experts testify that, globally, every year there are about 80 million unplanned pregnancies and 20 million unsafe abortions with the result that, as Marie Stopes International points out:

“Worldwide, one woman dies every 11 minutes from an unsafe abortion”.

Unsafe abortion is a major cause of maternal mortality and remains a major public health and human rights concern. Being able to make an informed choice and take control of your own reproductive health is surely a basic right. Does the Minister agree with the view that Governments and donors need to prioritise what women want, rather than what they feel most comfortable with doing and providing? Such a change is urgent. I remember talking to Beth outside her home in rural Tanzania. Such were the perils of childbirth that before she went into labour she would say goodbye to her children. Giving life should surely not mean taking such a risk.

A post-2015 assessment says that aiming to reduce newborn mortality by 70% will prevent 2 million child deaths every year. Such evidence highlights the urgent need to provide expectant mothers with nutrients, protection against disease, nursing care, clean water and hygiene facilities. All these initiatives can save precious lives and are taken for granted in the developed world. No girl should die giving birth and no child should die because its mother is too young. Each year around 1 million babies born to adolescent girls die before their first birthday.

These issues go beyond family planning. Campaigns and condom distribution are irrelevant to women and girls who simply do not have the power to make the decisions. A country’s current status and future prospects are clearly illuminated by examining, for instance, the lifetime risk of maternal death, the percentage of women using modern contraceptives, women’s literacy rate, their participation in national growth and the enrolment of girls in school.

The reality is that gender inequality remains a major propellant of poverty and women’s marginalisation, and a basic cause of underdevelopment. Faced with that reality, it is clear that little will change until the underlying root causes of discrimination are plainly and publicly identified as gender inequality and pervasive, discriminatory norms. Religious, cultural and social barriers impose overt discrimination that stands in the way of women’s freedom to choose.

One hundred and ninety-three Governments are currently gearing up for the UN discussion, at September’s annual meeting, on priorities for the next decade and a half. Currently, there are 17 goals and 169 targets. However, we can safely say that there will be a stand-alone goal on gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment. This will include universal access to sexual and reproductive health, and rights to be mainstreamed across all other goals. The task is to prevent an estimated 640,000 newborn deaths and 150,000 maternal deaths each year, which will result in 600,000 children having to grow up without a mother. When motherless children are 10 times more likely to die within two years of their mother’s death, the urgency is graphically obvious.

To achieve such advances we will indeed need political leadership. When fundamental rights are upheld, women, girls and young people can thrive. They can gain education, get better jobs with better wages and therefore reach their full potential. That objective is essential and, I believe, achievable. It will serve every interest. It must gain active support. The British Government have a duty to take the lead in that mission.

Ebola

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for initiating this debate and for his extremely thoughtful introduction to the subject, which made many of us think of the complexity of the issue.

After more than a year, the current outbreak of Ebola continues to destroy lives, livelihoods and communities. It impairs national economies and has damaged already fragile basic services. Ebola is a frequently recurring and fatal disease. Since its discovery in 1976, there have been several separate outbreaks with casualty rates as high as 90%. As Kofi Annan has said, it was only when the disease got to Europe and America that the international community really woke up to the crisis. This judgment was echoed by Dr Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization. Speaking on the reason for the failure to produce a vaccine or a cure after 40 years, she said:

“Because Ebola has been, historically, geographically confined to poor African nations. The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay”.

She made that sombre statement in a world in which 38% of the population do not have access to essential medicines and 50,000 people die each day from largely avoidable causes. Governments and industries should by now have recognised the need for co-ordinated efforts to make registered medicines available at low cost or no cost. Surely Ebola has reminded everyone that, wherever a health crisis occurs, it affects us all. Professor Peter Piot, who first identified Ebola, has said that it would not have been difficult to contain the outbreak if those on the ground had acted quickly but he said that tragically,

“something that is easy to control got completely out of hand”.

Investments in healthcare as well as in drugs are essential everywhere. The unimaginable suffering endured in poor countries by poor people urgently needs and deserves a response. Liberia has 51 doctors to serve a country of 4.2 million people. Sierra Leone has 136 doctors for a population of more than 6 million, an average of 0.2 doctors per 10,000 people. There are too many similarly pitiful shortages. Clearly, the reason we do not have a vaccine against Ebola is that the likely victims of the disease are not wealthy enough to pay for the full cost of treatments and medicines.

The BBC reported this morning that the current epidemic has taken more than 8,000 lives in the three west African countries most affected. The mortality rate is estimated to be 70%. Around 75% of the sufferers in Liberia, for instance, are women who, obviously, are the primary carers and the ones with the responsibility for caring for sick and dying relatives. All three countries lack functioning health systems and access to clean water. They have poor hygiene practices and, generally, an absence of sanitation. According to the NGO WaterAid, such is the enormity of the current challenge that the costs of the emergency response to this crisis will amount to more than the total health and water and sanitation aid committed to Liberia and Sierra Leone over the past five years. That gives us an idea of the nature of the crisis. Lessons must be learnt from the fact that the effects of the response in Nigeria and Senegal have clearly shown that the virus can be contained with a functioning healthcare system and a rapid administrative response.

There are now signs of some progress, but the epidemic is far from over and experts are urging caution. Infection rates, they advise, could oscillate and reinfection could occur. The WHO assistant director-general has warned against claiming that this very dangerous disease is under control. He said that a few mishandled burials could,

“start a whole new set of transmission chains”,

and the incidence of the disease could increase again.

A report published in last week’s Lancet Global Health by three specialist professors from leading British universities made it clear that IMF conditionalities have required Governments receiving aid to adopt policies that prioritise,

“short-term economic objectives over investment in health and education”.

Using IMF archive detail, they came to a view on the effects on the health systems in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. IMF economic reform programmes,

“required reductions in government spending, prioritisation of debt service, and bolstering of foreign exchange reserves. Such policies have often been extremely strict, absorbing funds that could be directed to meeting pressing health challenges”,

with the result that all the countries “failed to meet” the very modest IMF “targets for social spending”, and,

“to keep government spending low, the IMF often requires caps on the public-sector wage bill—and … funds to … adequately remunerate doctors, nurses and other health professionals … ‘often … without consideration of the impact on priority areas’”.

Such caps,

“have been linked to emigration of health personnel”,

and massive reductions in community health workers.

The article states that,

“the IMF has long advocated decentralisation of health-care systems”,

which,

“in practice … can make it difficult to mobilise coordinated, central responses to disease outbreaks”,

and led to a deterioration in the quality of health service delivery. The professors concluded that:

“All these effects are cumulative, contributing to the lack of preparedness of health systems to cope with infectious disease outbreaks and other emergencies … Although Lagarde’s comment on prioritising public health instead of fiscal discipline is welcome, similar comments have been made by her predecessors. Will the result be different this time?”.

That is a fundamental question, a matter of life and death. The UK Chancellor and Secretary of State for International Development have governor status in the IMF.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

I remind Members that this is a time-limited debate.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

I must ask the Minister, therefore: what is Her Majesty’s Government’s answer to this problem?

Malala Yousafzai

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Again, the noble Baroness is well aware of the significance of this. We are putting a great deal of effort into teaching the teachers. For example, in Pakistan we are training 90,000 teachers a year in Punjab and 16,000 in KP. She will see the scale of that, but it is extremely important that the training we offer is high quality.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that tackling the barriers that women and girls face, not least to education, has to involve an urgent need to tackle the negative effects on their life chances of cultural attitudes, social norms, domestic duties, early marriage and pregnancy? Surely those elements dictate that access to education is made impossible.

[Baroness Northover]

Indeed. I agree with the noble Baroness.