Sexual Violence in Conflict

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of support among United Nations Member States for the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2467 on sexual violence in conflict, and of progress in the Ending Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Humanitarian Crises Conference in Oslo on 23 and 24 May.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, UN Security Council Resolution 2467 was adopted in April, with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions. The UK deeply regretted that language recognising the need for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services was not included. I represented the UK at the Oslo conference and the momentum was clear: more than 100 Governments and other organisations made commitments to help end sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian crises. The UK will continue this momentum by hosting the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative international conference in November.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that response. Of course, I pay tribute to the UK’s role in ensuring that efforts to address this issue internationally are centre stage. I also welcome our presence at the Oslo conference and the fact that we made a new commitment to fund the tackling of violence against women and girls in Syria. Can the Minister outline how we will turn the PSVI conference into more than just an awareness-training session? Bearing in mind the fact that only 0.12% of the total humanitarian funding goes to tackling gender-based violence, can she tell us more about how we will do something to fund extra work and encourage others to do likewise?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as the noble Lord said, in Oslo I announced UK political commitments which included improving access to life-saving sexual and reproductive health services and £7 million of additional funding to support the UNFPA to tackle sexual and gender-based violence in Syria. The Oslo conference saw commitments of a very large amount of funding—$363 million—and hundreds of political commitments. The noble Lord is quite right that it is vital that we keep up momentum. It is also vital that we continue to demonstrate the UK’s strong leadership on this issue. The PSVI conference in November is an excellent opportunity to ensure that we and our international partners do that.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend the Minister and the Government, as well as the work led internationally by Members of this House, including my noble friends Lord Hague and Lady Helic. Will my noble friend explain whether victims’ voices will be central to the PSVI conference? Specifically, is she familiar with the UN report on sexual violence in Kashmir? Will she assure me that Kashmiri victims of sexual violence will be heard at the PSVI conference?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to pay tribute to the many voices across the Chamber who contribute to this important debate. Sadly, rape and other forms of sexual violence are still being used as weapons of war in conflicts the world over. The UK, together with our international partners, is working to end this horror. The PSVI conference in November is going to be survivor-centred. I heard some testimony from victims of abuse in Oslo; it is incredibly important that the survivors’ voices are heard, not just telling their stories but being involved in the policy debates and informing the next steps.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, Resolution 2467 and the Oslo conference both highlighted the importance of addressing the long-term trauma that victims face, as well as the stigmatisation of sexual violence survivors and their families within their communities. I ask the Minister: how does DfID programming address these issues?

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Baroness is quite right to address the issue of stigma and the long-term effect that this terrible violence can have on women. Through our programmes at DfID, we are working with our multilateral partners and in our country programmes to address this issue. Recently, we have developed our What Works to Prevent Violence programme, which has shown real improvements in addressing the root causes of violence, and we will continue to expand our work in that area.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I have just returned from Dohuk in northern Iraq, where more than 300,000 Yazidis are still living in IDP camps, and where thousands of women and young boys have returned from kidnapping and slavery—which involved sexual violence. What action are the Government taking, not only to provide psychological support and other services for the individuals and families living in these camps but, much more importantly, with the Iraqi Government to ensure that someday the Yazidis can return home to Sinjar?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the Government are supportive of efforts in Iraq to strengthen justice and hold perpetrators to account, and to allow returns. We have contributed to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, which supports projects in Iraq that seek to address and reduce violence. We are also at the forefront of ensuring accountability for the well-documented crimes, and we champion the resolution at the UN Security Council. Indeed, we have a UK QC leading the investigating team in Iraq.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

While congratulating the British Government and the Minister for the tremendous work that the FCO has undertaken on sexual violence after and during conflict, might she be willing to think about pushing the issue further forward with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association? At last year’s gathering here, I had the opportunity to present the PSVI, as the FCO has it, to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegations. If we could get it into those parliaments, and every single parliament was supporting it, it would have a true long-term impact on this unbelievably beastly issue.

[Baroness Sugg]

Of course, it is important that we work with all our international partners on this. The UK, rightly, is speaking of this regularly, but we must ensure that it is on everybody’s agenda too. My noble friend’s suggestion of working more closely with our Commonwealth partners is a very good one, which I will take forward ahead of the PSVI conference.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether UK aid still provides for abortions for women who have been raped in conflict? Can she also confirm that the United Kingdom recognises that international law on these matters overrides the national law of the country in these situations?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the UK is committed to empowering women and girls to choose whether and when they have children, giving them greater control over their lives. In humanitarian crisis situations, as the noble Baroness highlights, that is more important than ever. It is our view that in situations of armed conflict or occupation, where the denial of abortion threatens a woman’s life or causes unbearable suffering, international humanitarian law principles may justify offering a safe abortion, rather than perpetuating what amounts to inhumane treatment.

Pakistan: Aid for Persecuted Minorities

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

In asking my Question I should mention that I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Pakistani Minorities.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, in the past 10 years, the UK has given £2.6 billion in aid to Pakistan, targeted towards the poorest and most excluded, who are often from minorities. We promote minority rights from grass roots to the highest levels of government. UK aid to Pakistan is declining but continues to focus on the poorest. Since 2011, UK aid has supported primary education for 10 million children, skills training for almost 250,000 people, and microfinance loans for 6.6 million people.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I thank the Minister for that reply and welcome her to her new responsibilities. Is she able to intervene on behalf of Shagufta Kauser, an illiterate woman from one of Pakistan’s beleaguered minorities, who now occupies Asia Bibi’s cell in Multan and who, like her, has been sentenced to death for allegedly sending blasphemous texts in English? When two children are forced to watch a lynch mob of 1,200 burn alive their parents; when no one is brought to justice for the murder of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities; when 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are forcibly married and converted; and when minorities are ghettoised into squalid colonies, which I have visited, and forced to clean latrines and sweep streets, is it not time that DfID re-examined its policy of refusing to specifically direct any of the £383,000 that, on average, we give every single day to Pakistan in aid for the alleviation of the suffering and destitution of these desperate minorities?

[Baroness Sugg]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s long-standing involvement in this important issue. We remain deeply concerned by the misuse of blasphemy laws and the treatment of minority religious communities in Pakistan. We regularly raise these concerns with the Government of Pakistan at a senior level. I share the noble Lord’s desire to ensure that our international aid funding reaches those who most need it. Currently, many Pakistanis are reluctant to declare themselves members of religious minorities because of fear of discrimination. We are working to ensure that we understand where our aid is going. I can reassure the noble Lord that we continually keep our programmes under review, and where we can better prioritise resources we will do so.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, ODA money funds the CAPRI programme in Pakistan. While its aim is to increase Pakistan’s capacity to investigate, detain and prosecute suspected terrorists, its definition of terrorism is incredibly wide. It has also resulted in torture and 195 death sentences. Will the Minister ask her department to investigate whether the CAPRI project, supported by the CSSF, could be supporting such human rights abuses? Will she commit to publishing the overseas security and justice assistance assessment that led to this project being signed off by a Minister?

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[Baroness Sugg]

As the noble Lord will be aware, the Government oppose the death penalty in all circumstances. We will continue to ensure that our position on that is made clear in all our dealings with partner Governments. I am afraid I am not aware of the specific project that the noble Lord raises, but I will certainly go back to the department and write to him in detail.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, the white stripe on the Pakistan flag signifies the rights of religious minorities, but today Pakistan has strayed a long way from the ideals of its founder, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, and its heinous blasphemy laws are feared with good reason by the same minority groups he sought to protect. I ask the Minister, at the same time as welcoming her to her new role: what safeguards does DfID put in place to ensure that religious minorities are, at the very least, not discriminated against in accessing and benefiting from DfID programmes?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I mentioned our response to the blasphemy laws in a previous answer. We must continue to stand up for human rights and freedom of religion and belief. The Prime Minister has appointed my noble friend Lord Ahmad as special envoy on the issue. He raises it regularly, and did so recently in February.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, the treatment of minorities in Pakistan, particularly Christians, infringes not only the UN declaration of human rights but, ironically, also the clear teachings of the Koran, which says that the people of the book—that is, Christians and Jews—should be allowed to practise their religion unhindered. Despite this, members of the Christian community have been murdered and placed on death row for years on end for professing their faith, and it is now reported that some Christian women and young girls are being sold into slavery in China and used for the harvesting of organs. With that in mind, does the Minister agree that we should now look to the targeting of our aid and moving for Pakistan to be expelled, not for the first time, from the Commonwealth?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I certainly agree that we need to ensure that our international aid reaches those people who need it most. To that end, the Foreign Secretary has commissioned an independent report to fully understand the scope of the issue, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro will be writing recommendations on how we can better address this issue.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I understood that human rights practice in the country in question was a factor in the allocation of aid from us. I think it is clear that in Pakistan freedom of religion means that if you have a certain faith you are apt to face the death penalty, which does not strike me as in conformity with human rights or freedom of religion.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I said, my department and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office work closely to ensure that we are able to protect minority communities in Pakistan. We have seen some progress, and we welcome the commitments made by Prime Minister Khan to improve inclusion and transparency and to set Pakistan on a path to greater self-reliance. We have seen positive steps so far, including progress made on child marriage by passing the child marriage restraint Act and the issuing of visas to allow Indian Sikhs to make a pilgrimage to Pakistan. There are other commitments, including the creation of a commission on minorities and the Christian divorce Bill, where we will continue to support the Pakistan Government in implementing those policies.

Africa: Population Growth

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of population growth in Africa; and whether their development policies aim to restrain such growth.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, more than half of expected growth in global population between 2017 and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa. Rapid population growth could of course impact sustainable development. We are working with African Governments to unlock investment in education, empowerment and opportunities for employment to enable young people across Africa to fulfil their potential and build prosperous futures. This includes supporting the rights of women and girls to choose whether and when to have children.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her new appointment. As an example, in 1950, the population of Nigeria was 38 million, and now it is over 190 million. UN estimates are that, by 2050, it will be 411 million and, by the end of the century, 794 million. Are these figures not alarming? Does she agree that, in respect of the dignity and freedom of women, the Government should do all they can in co-operation with African countries to further family spacing?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Lord for his welcome. He is right to highlight that. Further, Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world. To harness the benefits of demographic transition, we need to invest majorly in quality education, as well as family planning and helping women to space their families properly. We think that sustainable progress on these issues must be African owned and led, and we are supporting our partners to plan for the population growth and to empower and invest in the region’s young and growing populations through greater access to voluntary family planning, wider sexual and reproductive health and rights, education, gender equality and economic development to help stimulate job creation.

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that 60% of the population of Africa are under the age of 25, and 65% live in rural areas? What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to promote greater access to education, housing, healthcare and job opportunities in these rural areas?

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is right to highlight that over 60% of people on the African continent are under 25 and, as I said previously, we expect to see a great deal of population growth in the region. We are working hard to ensure that there is better access to healthcare. On education, in particular, between 2010 and 2015 we supported 11.4 million children and young people to gain a decent education, more than 5 million of whom were girls. We have a specific project—the Girls’ Education Challenge—which currently supports marginalised girls to benefit from a quality education and to acquire know-how for work and life. This will give them a second chance to learn, and we are specifically targeting it on highly marginalised girls.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, according to the new UN hunger report, the rise in global hunger for the third year in a row is due to the impact of climate shocks, conflicts and economic breakdown. The worst forms of malnutrition are highest in Africa and when I last visited Malawi the irreversible stunting among young children was close to 40%. Will the Government heed the UN’s warning that ending malnutrition requires immediate action to help vulnerable communities? Will they implement the recommendations of the UN’s 2018 Global Nutrition Report, building on the success of bringing stunting down from 36% per year on average in 2000 to just 22% last year?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that we must do what we can to prevent child stunting. We are investing significant amounts in global healthcare, focusing on delivering the sustainable development goals.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, during the Recess I travelled in north Africa and I took the opportunity to ask people I met about the size of their families. Those who had been brought up with six, seven or even eight siblings almost invariably had only two or three children of their own. Where people have access to contraception and information, this is increasingly the case across the developing world. Will my noble friend confirm that, following the leadership of the family planning conference in London a couple of years ago, the Government will continue to keep family planning at the heart of DfID’s strategy and programmes?

[Baroness Sugg]

I am happy to confirm to my noble friend that we will of course keep fertility planning at the heart of our programmes. We are the world’s second largest global bilateral donor on family planning and have given nearly 17 million women access to modern methods of family planning every year since 2015. We believe that women and girls have the fundamental right to make their own informed choices about sex and child bearing, and one of the projects in which we are investing more than £200 million is the women’s integrated sexual health, WISH, which will increase access to life-saving voluntary contraception in 24 countries in Africa and three in Asia.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her appointment and welcome her to her new role. I too congratulate the Government on what they are doing in development support. She has made the case for development support in Africa. However, I am concerned that the amount of money we are spending on empowering women and developing family programmes is being countered by the huge amount of money flowing into Africa from overseas, particularly from evangelical churches which are preaching the complete opposite of what we are funding. Have the Government carried out an analysis of the impact of this work and the damage it does to the empowerment of women?

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[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I have not seen any analysis on this issue. We are working closely with the continent of Africa to ensure that we are able to fund our projects correctly and influence them where we can. The Prime Minister visited Africa at the end of last year to set out a new partnership to ensure that we can maximise our influence there.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, further to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, on this Question, the Minister will know that, where countries provide voluntary family planning, the fertility rate is beginning to fall and that in many countries it has fallen a great deal. The problem remains however—I get reports from many countries, particularly in Africa—that women still cannot afford to buy family planning supplies because they are not freely available. Have the Department for International Development and the Government—who have done well on this issue and I congratulate them—any plans to make family planning free?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. When I was researching this issue, I read a previous comment from her about how, if we did not have access to our own family planning, few of us would have been where we are today. That hit home with me. She is right to point out that family planning has the benefit of reducing fertility levels, which can be transformational around population growth. We are working closely to ensure that women and girls across developing countries can access and use family planning without coercion or discrimination and with a full, free and informed choice.

Girl Effect: DfID Funding

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

In many ways, I am sympathetic to what the noble Lord says. The Secretary of State wrote an op-ed piece this morning about giving that £200 million of British taxpayers’ money to those people in desperate need in South Sudan and Somalia, and it is very difficult to see where that is picked up. It is pointless criticising the media. We have the media we have because we are the people we are, and the truth is that the misspending, or ineffective spending, of potentially £4.5 million in Ethiopia is deemed more important by them than the £10 billion that we spend very wisely in saving lives around the world.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, women and girls are a key part of the sustainable development goals. Will my noble friend tell us when DfID will be publishing its strategy on a UK approach to the SDGs and how it will monitor progress?

[Lord Bates]

That is of course a very important part of SDG 5, which is specifically on gender balance, and the sustainable development goals do not just apply to other countries but to us as well. That is why we have been undertaking a review, across government, to see how the sustainable development goals are going to be impacted in this country, which is being done jointly with the Cabinet Office. We will be publishing Agenda 2030 very shortly to set out our plans in that area, and we will monitor them through the Office for National Statistics.