International Women’s Day

Baroness Mobarik Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in today’s debate. On International Women’s Day we celebrate the numerous achievements and successes of women, but alongside the victories there are countless statistics and reports about the disadvantages, discrimination and gender-based violence that women face around the world. For all the very welcome advances, the pace of change on women’s rights, as enshrined by the UN 73 years ago, is staggeringly slow.

This past year, during the Covid-19 pandemic, women have often been the first to lose their jobs, and they may well be the last to be re-employed once things return to normal. The burden of childcare, home-schooling and domestic chores has all been overwhelmingly borne by women during this crisis, as noble Lords have acknowledged today. Women make up 39% of global employment; they account for 54% of job losses. If no action is taken in this gender-regressive scenario then, according to McKinsey, estimated global GDP could be $1 trillion lower in 2030.

As my noble friend Lord Bourne stated, Prime Minister Johnson has been a strong advocate for the empowerment of women and girls through education. He has demonstrated his commitment by an initiative to get 40 million more girls into primary and secondary school in developing countries by 2025. If they are reading by the age of 10, they are more likely to go to secondary school, marry much later and have financial independence.

Later this year, the UK will co-host with Kenya the Global Partnership for Education summit here in the UK. It is an opportunity to work collaboratively in this post-pandemic world. Kids have been out of school everywhere; it is important to get them back to school, both here and around the world. We are all in this together. Cuts in our aid budget are understandable due to recent challenges but it is vital that we maintain support for lifting countless children around the world out of poverty through education. It is crucial for our own security and is an important aspect of our diplomacy and influence. To honour our commitments, we will have to find new and creative ways of funding large-scale programmes for the delivery of education.

I want to make one further point. The situation of women in the developing world will not change until we tackle the root causes. Poverty is one but it does not explain everything. We agree that education for girls is key but, in addition, a concerted global effort is required to place specific emphasis on educating men to see women as equals. I must qualify that there are many enlightened men across the developing world who do support women and have been instrumental in bringing about progress.

However, a total shift in cultural mindset is needed, and this will not happen of its own accord. It needs a universal curriculum, if you like, led by the UN or the Commonwealth, which will aim to change the attitudes of future generations in a positive way—sustained efforts in getting more girls into school, parallel with educating boys on the very specific subject of gender equality, and so much can be done online. Centuries of cultural history will not be easy to shift, but this is not religious. As the noble Lord, Lord Singh, stated, most religions—whether it is Christianity, Islam or Sikhism—espouse equality. This is about a cultural mindset. It may take a generation or two to bring about the desired result but if we do not act now then, at the current pace, we may achieve our goals in 100 to 150 years’ time. That is simply not acceptable.