UK National Plan on Women, Peace and Security

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

This is an incredibly important area. I am sure that the noble Baroness met with Samira Hamidi, Parwin Wafa and Dr Dida Pighla last month when they visited, these incredibly inspirational human rights defenders in Afghanistan. As the noble Baroness will be aware, Amnesty International has now raised this issue on a number of occasions. I have commissioned a specific piece of work, and it is apparent from the initial research papers that I am getting back that there is a lot of support for human rights defenders, and specifically women’s human rights defenders, in Afghanistan, but there is also a real problem in relation to these women being aware of the support that is available. There is certainly some work that needs to be done to bring that work together. Some clearer work needs to be done on signposting and possibly on having an arm’s-length body that would take some of this work forward. However, I will certainly keep the noble Baroness updated. This is something that I am acutely aware of.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on making the renewed commitment to fulfilling our obligations as outlined under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. I want to return to the funding and resourcing of this, because none of it will happen unless the funding is available. I am slightly concerned that it would be easy for it to be squeezed under these circumstances. If the noble Baroness feels the need for us to mount a campaign to strengthen her arm on this, she has only to ask.