Health: HIV
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
Like the noble Lord opposite, I had an extremely instructive visit to the IAVI lab at Imperial College. He will have noted, as I did, the challenge of trying to find a vaccine for HIV because of the difficulty with the way the virus mutates. This is in contrast, for example, with seeking to find a vaccine for Ebola. We continue to emphasise the need for research in this area, but it is immensely challenging.
Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, when the Global Fund launched its great campaign to get antiretroviral drugs out to AIDS sufferers all over the world, it missed an opportunity to ensure that there were simple primary care health systems set up on the back of the campaign, and people in Africa are suffering from that now?
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness is right in her analysis of what happened in the first instance. Because HIV was such a major catastrophe, it was targeted separately from the health systems. However, the lesson was quickly learned that these needed to be integrated. Our emphasis now is absolutely that this needs to be integrated with the health systems in the relevant countries, and this has benefits across the board.
Gaza: Reconstruction
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Tonge
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what contribution they are making to the reconstruction of infrastructure in Gaza.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, at the Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo, the United Kingdom committed £20 million to assist those affected by the recent conflict in Gaza, including the hundreds of thousands left homeless or without access to water. This funding will include support for the disposal of unexploded ordnance, rubble clearance programmes and reconstructive surgery for those injured in the conflict.
Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
I thank my noble friend for her Answer but how does she intend to reassure taxpayers in this country, who are increasingly worried about expenditure on international aid, that the money for reconstruction in Gaza will not be squandered when Israel launches another attack in a couple of years’ time? Can she also say why so many of the contracts for building materials and the reconstruction of Gaza are going to Israeli companies, thus ensuring that Israel profits from the destruction that it caused?
Baroness Northover
No one benefits from destruction in Gaza. In terms of the rebuilding, we are looking very carefully at the implications of any damage to internationally funded structures. Meanwhile, our partners assure us that relief items are largely sourced in Gaza, the West Bank or internationally.
Development: Post-2015 Agenda
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, in welcoming this debate and thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for introducing it, I add my congratulations and thanks to her for all the work she has done on development issues—over several decades, I suspect.
The first report by the UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, published in June 2012, recommended:
“A vision for the future that rests on the core values of human rights, equality and sustainability”.
Looking at the current state of the world, one might as well ask for the lion to lie down with the lamb. Despite modest advances since the millennium development goals were set, it is going to be a very hard task indeed, but for the sake of our children and grandchildren we simply must face this challenge.
I must get this off my chest: I find all the reports I read on tackling inequality somewhat irritating, full as they are of goals, targets and indicators. The best one yet is “disaggregated data”. Can you have a target for disaggregated data, or a goal? I do not know. Sometimes I wonder what on earth they are talking about, or if they even know what they are talking about. They all say what should happen but are very short on how it should happen.
The briefing from Bond, which I found very helpful, suggested that economic inequality should be tackled by including it in the overall framework and not letting it be solely the concern of national Governments, which is something that the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, addressed. The former chief economist at the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, has proposed that a goal should be set so that by 2030 the post-tax income of the top 10% of the population is no more than the post-transfer income of the bottom 40%—discuss. Has anyone told George Osborne? But for inequalities to be ironed out we must also have universal public services. People are entitled to healthcare and education opportunities.
How is this to be achieved—by taxation? For taxes to be raised, people need to have an income and we have heard from many noble Lords that people in developing countries do not have incomes. What income the country has is often siphoned off into Swiss banks, tax havens—offshore this and that. The rulers siphon off the money before it reaches the people. Should the post-2015 framework include something on tackling corruption? I think it should. It is a very serious issue.
As chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, I have a suggestion—more than that, a solution. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, has already referred to me in this context. The solution is really a very simple one. If we look at all the statistics and indicators—yes, and disaggregated data, if we must—produced by international authorities and academics all over the world, we see that no country has improved its economy and hence the well-being of its population without first stabilising population growth. It is a theme that I refer to over and again, I know, but it is true. It was always thought that it was the other way round: that once a country became prosperous, people would limit their family size, but it is not so. To stabilise population growth, yes, we need to make voluntary family planning available. No coercion is required, just readily available contraception supplies and advice. Women must be allowed to control their own bodies and fertility. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, has alluded to that. It is a basic right of womankind to be able to control their bodies and the number of children they bear. We must discourage child marriage, on which our group has recently produced a report. I note with pleasure that Gordon Brown is now working hard on this issue in northern India and Pakistan.
By controlling their fertility, women can access education for themselves and their children, thus eventually adding to the workforce, to the potential for their country and to their own self-esteem and position in society. It is a provision that politicians in the developing and the developed world have tended to ignore until the recent initiatives by our own Government. I am proud that it is our own Government who have made family planning and maternal health so important in development issues, and indeed have achieved the target of spending 0.7% of GNP on aid.
Many women in this country whom I talk to have forgotten how important family planning provision is, and how important it is for women to be able to control their own fertility. They have got it; we have taken it for granted; nobody thinks about it any more; so it is not high on many people’s agenda. However, there are more than 220 million women worldwide who would limit their family size if only they had access to contraception. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, alluded to religion being a factor in this. Yes, indeed, it is. I have to warn noble Lords that the influence of religion in these issues is rising again. On 10 April, there is to be discussed in the European Parliament what I think is called a “citizens’ initiative” which has come from the religious right all over Europe—they have gained enough support to get it debated in the European Parliament—to ban any aid from the European Union being used in any way for the destruction of an unborn child. That includes, as did the ban imposed by George Bush, not just provision of safe abortion but counselling about abortion and, in many cases, contraception too. All those programmes are as one. If you provide family planning services, you are also able to advise people on abortion. This initiative means that those funds will be cut. It is very serious that people should be seeking to curb what is the most essential form of aid we can give if we really care about development.
Free from endless childbearing and ill health, women could do so much to iron out inequalities in their countries, whether it is gender inequality or the inequality between the rich and the poor. As we have heard, women are the poorest people in developing countries. Two-thirds of the world’s poorest are women and they own only 1% of property.
By all means, let us insist that the new post-2015 framework tackle inequality by including considerations of ethnicity, of marginalised groups and of economic injustice, but let us not forget—and I am glad to say that our Government have not forgotten—that the most important thing of all which must be writ large in the post-2015 framework is the sexual and reproductive rights and empowerment of women.
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for securing this debate and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Verjee, on a brilliant maiden speech—I congratulate him even more on surviving cerebral malaria.
I have not exactly heaped praise on the coalition Government in the past three years, but I praise them for having the vision and good sense to see that overseas aid, prudently spent, not only benefits people in developing countries but will eventually benefit us all by reducing poverty and migration and increasing our markets abroad.
Not being a great fan of “vertical lines of expenditure” on specific issues, I was sceptical when the Global Fund was set up, but I accepted that the three diseases that we are discussing were causing such devastation that a new approach was clearly needed—and the Global Fund was that new approach. It has been successful, as we have heard from the fund itself in the excellent briefing that we have received from it and from other noble Lords. I shall therefore congratulate the fund but not repeat what has already been said by other speakers.
Replenishment of the fund is now needed, and we have heard of the plans for it. We must keep up support for the fund and nag other countries to keep pledges. Drug resistance is growing and we must stay vigilant.
This applies also to my main interest, which is population and development, and expenditure on sexual and reproductive health, particularly family planning. According to the ODA, funding for population assistance is still increasing, but at a much slower rate than prior to the financial crisis. This is despite the tremendous boost given to accessible family planning by our coalition Government at the summit in London last year and carried forward by the Gates Foundation, to which we owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Allowing women in the least developed countries to have access to family planning to limit the number of children they have is still crucial to the achievement of the millennium development goals. If the world’s population continues to increase, the MDGs become harder to achieve. We may feel that we are making progress, but more and more people coming into the world will need more help and more treatment. It is crucial therefore to keep up the pressure on family planning provision, always ensuring of course that there is no coercion. If you consult the statistics, you will see that economic growth always follows reduction in family size; it is not the other way round, as used to be believed. And that, reduction in family size, is the way out of poverty for most developing countries.
One of the factors which led to my lack of enthusiasm for “vertical” programmes such as the Global Fund—this has been alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman—is that while a patient may get his or her treatment for HIV/AIDS or TB, the provision of reproductive healthcare and contraception may be in another clinic or another place, necessitating another long journey to a health centre—and sometimes the provision does not exist at all. I am delighted, therefore, that the Global Fund is now trying to ensure that more comprehensive health systems will be set up alongside the treatments for AIDS, TB and malaria. I would love to hear the Minister’s assurance on that. There is a direct link, too: contraception in the form of condoms is after all the first defence against AIDS while we are waiting for a vaccine. Every health facility dealing with AIDS should remember this fact and have those available.
Once again, I congratulate the Global Fund and the current and previous Governments on having achieved so much in international development during the past two decades, and I look forward to the next decade with some confidence.
Female Genital Mutilation
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Tonge (LD)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords, particularly of course the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for introducing the debate and for giving us so many statistics and graphic details, which noble Lords will be glad to hear I do not intend to repeat. FGM is a terrible practice and a very ancient one, as is male circumcision. No one really knows why these things started—perhaps we shall never know—but we know that FGM is still prevalent in the world today, and for women it is the most horrible and dangerous practice.
I want to say what in my experience has gone on in Parliament. I came into Parliament in 1997 with a lot of women parliamentarians, and I quickly joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population Development and Reproductive Health. Of course there was the 1985 Act that prohibited FGM—everyone knows about that—but by the year 2000 that all-party group had produced a report on female genital mutilation, which is still up on the group’s website. Following that report, Christine McCafferty MP, the chair of the group at the time, took a 10-minute rule Bill through Parliament to prevent FGM from being perpetrated on girls taken out of the country. It was illegal within the country but we wanted to ensure that girls could not be taken out in the school holidays. This was followed by Ann Clwyd—supported in the House of Commons, I may say, by me—introducing an amendment to the 1985 Act, and in 2003 Royal Assent was given to making FGM illegal if girls were taken out of the country to have it done.
Nevertheless, it has taken 10 years to get the broader media and parliamentarians interested and, as we have heard, no prosecutions of individuals have taken place in that time, the main reason being that although, for example, 63 cases were reported between November 2009 and November 2011, no individual would give evidence. Girls stay loyal to their families. The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, has to be congratulated; throughout this time she has campaigned on this issue and constantly drawn attention to this dreadful abuse.
Some 18 months ago, my all-party group suggested that we had a meeting with the Director of Public Prosecutions—Keir Starmer, at the time—to discuss why no prosecutions were taking place. He organised a round-table meeting; Jane Ellison, the chair of the all-party group on FGM, came to it, as did many social workers, doctors, teachers and NGOs. He got together a huge collegiate group of people who were concerned about this practice. After several meetings, there is now a countrywide alert for teachers, doctors, social workers and so on to report any suspicions that they may have.
I understand too that the Home Affairs Select Committee is to investigate the matter, but I contend that we have had enough reports, investigations and round-table meetings. What we need is a prosecution, and Keir Starmer assured us a few months ago that there was one in the pipeline. That is what we need. We do not want the victim to be harmed, but we need a prosecution that is well publicised in order to alert everyone in the country to this awful practice.
Global Partnership for Aid Effectiveness
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
The noble Lord might look at the United Kingdom, too, and wonder whether that is a challenge that we also face. Of course it is a challenge, and it is one that we are well aware of. It is encouraging to see that there are very talented people working within, for example, the sovereign wealth funds, which can be useful instruments in the economic development of some of those countries.
Baroness Tonge
My Lords, have the Government made an assessment of the effectiveness of aid to the Palestinians? Can the Minister also tell us whether the Government have made any attempt to recoup the cost of that aid from the Government of Israel, who are, after all, responsible under Geneva conventions for the welfare of the people whose land they occupy?
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness has made this point before. We constantly monitor the situation with the Palestinians. We are very concerned about their situation and frequently make the case about it to the Government of Israel. I would also point out, as I have before, that we need to see peacebuilding measures between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which will be in the interests of both sides.
Women: Developing Countries
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Baroness Tonge
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Loomba on bringing this topic before the House. I am sad that so few people are here, because from my point of view this is a far more important subject than how many injuries there will be at Wimbledon today.
While I was ruminating early this morning about how I would begin my speech, I decided to glance at my e-mails first. You know how it is: you cannot quite get down to composing, so you think: “I will do my e-mails first”. There was a message from a Kevin Rudd. Did other noble Lords receive one? It was quite extraordinary. I do not know why I was singled out for this honour, and it caught my eye. I know some Australian MPs, so that is probably the reason. After pledging to stop the “negative personal politics” of recent years, he said:
“I want to acknowledge the achievements of my predecessor, Julia Gillard. She is a woman of extraordinary intelligence, of great strength and energy. She has achieved much under the difficult circumstances of minority government”.
I have it here. If noble Lords would like a copy, I can send it to them. Yes, it was the new Prime Minister of Australia trying to wipe out a year of insults and abuse that have been hurled at a woman Prime Minister by Members of Parliament in a developed country—one of our own. What example is that to male politicians all over the world, particularly in developing countries: that it is okay to be macho, abusive and insulting to women? Australia is not alone. I still could not settle and found another e-mail, asking me to support an Early Day Motion, which of course I cannot, to call yet again for the banning of topless girls on page 3 of the Sun.
We are ashamed of the violence against women in this country and the way in which so many are portrayed as sex objects. We are appalled by the number of girls who will be taken abroad during the summer holidays to undergo female genital mutilation, and by the number of women who are still silent victims of domestic violence and rape, but all these things have their roots in the general attitude to women that still persists in this and other countries, despite the huge progress that we have made.
Female Members of this House have had free healthcare and every educational opportunity, although I never learnt to make chicken soup. However, apart from that, I had lots of opportunities. I hope that most of us have used those gifts to be useful to our communities and country. In this place, at least, the vast majority of us are free from sexual harassment and denigration, even though we are sorely underrepresented. However, we must always use every opportunity to remind men in this country and abroad that having healthy women and girls will ensure social and economic development for families, communities and, ultimately, whole countries. In other words, it will make them richer and their wallets will be fatter. We must convince them of this—the figures are there. Having women help build strong economies can happen only if they receive maternal healthcare, for all the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and are able to control their fertility and destiny.
Countries in the Middle East and north Africa in particular need reminding of this as the so-called Arab spring evolves. Two decades of advances in women’s health and reproductive rights are coming under threat in some areas by conservative religious forces. This was highlighted this week at a UNFPA conference in Cairo, where the executive director Babatunde—I am sorry, I will use his Christian name, as he knows that I cannot pronounce his surname—called for better access to healthcare, particularly family planning, as a way to resolve region-wide economic problems.
I also need to remind the House that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, pointed out, world population is growing rapidly, causing more and more shortages of food, water and infrastructure, which makes little sense when 222 million women in the world want family planning but cannot access it. I was a family planning doctor and ran women’s health services in a health authority before entering Parliament. I know that it is a funny old title and perhaps not as prestigious as being a brain surgeon. My children used to call me “bare foot doc”. My husband, being a man, was, of course, “high tech doc”. However, I was passionate about my craft and had plenty of work to do among many sorts and conditions of women from many different ethnic groups. I felt then, as I feel now, that the single most important thing we can offer women is control over their fertility.
I am no fan of the coalition Government, as I think most people know. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, I am a fan of their superb international development policy. Their explicit commitment to women, and support for family planning in particular, is such that I dream about it at night. The apotheosis has happened at last. I applaud the Gates foundation and the UNFPA for the FP summit held in Westminster last year, which was followed up by the pre-G8 conference that the all-party group and the European parliamentary forum hosted here in Westminster. We were pleased to see that the leaders’ communiqué from the G8 referred, I think for the first time ever, to maternal health—Hoorah! We are getting places, even if they could not bring themselves to utter the words “family planning”, but we will forgive them that.
I have one more body to congratulate, which again was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin. One of the goals of the panel looking at the post-2015 MDG agenda makes explicit reference to maternal health and universal sexual and reproductive rights. This really is good news and it has come from this Government, I am very happy to say. However, there is a “but”. I hope that the Minister can update us on whether the pledges made at last year’s conference funded by the Gates foundation and UNFPA have been realised and what progress has been made in getting family planning to the millions of women who need it.
There is one aspect of women’s health that is probably the most disturbing of all, and that is the plight of women in conflict. They are driven from their homes, starved and raped and often have no access to healthcare even though they are entitled to it, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Hamwee. If they become pregnant as a result of rape in conflict, there is still confusion about whether abortion services are accessible and whether access is sometimes prevented because of pooled funding, including funding from countries such as the USA, which will not allow abortion services in its aid agenda. We still need to push on this and to keep on mentioning it, as it is still not clear whether those services are there.
This month, the Select Committee on International Development published a report on ending violence against women. It highlights, yet again, the way in which any nation treats its women holds the key to its economic and social development. I quote the chairman, my right honourable friend Sir Malcolm Bruce, who said:
“When you treat women as chattels—when you mutilate them, abuse them, force them to marry early, lock them out of school or stop them entering the work force—you fail to function as a society”.
He put it as bluntly as that. The All-Party Group on Population Development has produced a brilliant report called, A Childhood Lost, on early marriage, and I urge noble Lords to read it. Despite the best efforts of the UK Government in the international community, that remains the lot of millions of our sisters around the world and we must never forget them.
International Development: Budget
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Baroness Tonge
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on securing this debate and bringing this topic to the attention of the House. It has triggered a memory for me. As a new Member of Parliament way back in 1997, I can recall very well that a new defence review was being undertaken. I attended an interesting discussion between Ministers past and present about the concept of defence diplomacy. To my innocent ears, it sounded like a new dawn. One of the MoD’s eight missions was to,
“dispel hostility, build and maintain trust, and assist in the development of democratically controlled armed forces”.
The defence budget would fund these activities; it was brilliant. The new dawn soon faded, however, as young and not so young Ministers got the smell of cordite in their nostrils, or whatever it is that makes men—it is mainly men, I am afraid—go to war in order to try to solve the world’s problems. The last Government certainly loved their military adventures.
I have not heard much about defence diplomacy since then, but I am extremely pleased and almost proud, although I do not like that word, that our coalition Government have committed to spend 0.7% of GNI on international development, 30% of which will be spent on fragile states, which we all know are the poorest in the world and unlikely to achieve the millennium development goals. Conflict produces poverty and poverty causes violence and war; we all know that cycle. I appreciate that because of this, there needs to be co-operation between the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development.
I am extremely concerned, however, at the suggestion that by some sleight of hand the protected DfID budget will be used to shore up the unprotected MoD budget. What a fall from grace that would be. How cynical it appears, especially if the money is used directly or indirectly for things like helicopter gunships. That would do great harm to our reputation for international development throughout the world. Development and military activity, even defence diplomacy if it is still practised, however well intentioned, must be seen as separate activities. Journalists have reported from Afghanistan that the Taliban has attacked aid workers because they were thought to be collaborating with western forces. NGOs—Christian Aid in particular —have expressed their fears that aid workers’ lives will be in danger in fragile situations if they are thought to be colluding with the military. It would be disastrous.
The best way to bring about peace and stability is through poverty reduction. Young, poor and under- employed people are used as fuel for conflict. We need to concentrate on giving them better lives by educating them, especially the girls, and improving their health and prospects.
As chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Population Development and Reproductive Health, I must add that around 350,000 girls and women die every year in pregnancy and childbirth. The majority of them live in fragile and conflict-wracked states with no access to family planning or safe abortion, obstetric care, or even skilled birth attendants. I must also remind the House that there is an enormous unmet need for voluntary family planning around the world. The consequences of not providing family planning resources are unsustainable population levels, which lead to conflict over the world’s diminishing resources. It is a very important link. While on the subject of women and girls, the Minister would expect me to say that we must not allow Department for International Development money for safe abortion after rape in armed conflict to be diverted away from this very necessary service because of the aid policies of other countries such as the USA.
There is too much demand for aid in fragile states for it to be diverted to the needs of the Ministry of Defence, however hard it argues the case that fragile states need military intervention. It is too dangerous to contemplate, both for the people in the country affected and for aid workers operating there. I have every sympathy for Ministers who are seeing their precious defence budget cut, but the remedies are staring them in the face. Perhaps I may make a few suggestions. First, we must stop thinking that the United Kingdom should intervene in every conflict and civil war around the globe. Secondly, we must stop just fighting terrorism and start addressing the causes of terrorism—noble Lords would expect me to mention the plight of the Palestinians. Thirdly, please can we abandon the ridiculous notion that Trident needs to be replaced? Some £20 billion to £25 billion could be saved in a stroke on Trident alone. That would pay for a few helicopter gunships.
Developing Countries: Budgetary Support
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Northover
The right reverend Prelate is quite right. He will have noted that my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have focused very much on this and are emphasising it at the G8. DfID has a number of programmes assisting in the development of the tax collection regimes in countries in which we work, because we recognise that it is extremely important that those within developing countries, whether they are international companies or prospering citizens, contribute to the country’s development.
Baroness Tonge
My Lords, the Minister told us that the Government want value for money in international development—and rightly so. Will the Government therefore consider stopping aid to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and persuading, if not forcing, Israel to pay for its illegal occupation of those territories?
Baroness Northover
My Lords, having visited the West Bank and Gaza, as has the noble Baroness, I would be extremely reluctant to do anything to stop aid to those in Palestine. I am sure that we will come on to a further discussion of the Middle East in the debate that is to follow. We continue to engage very actively in seeking to take forward a Middle East peace process, because that is the key to sorting out the problem.
Rape in Armed Conflict
Baroness Tonge Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Tonge
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lester for not only securing this debate but having the courage to raise what is a very contentious issue. It is difficult to estimate how many women have been raped during armed conflict, but a survey in the American Journal of Public Health a year ago estimated that in the Congo, over 1,000 women were raped every day. We know that rape is a weapon of war and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, is also a step to genocide.
Closer to home, I was fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to be in Tirana in the spring of 1999 when the people of Kosovo were fleeing from the Serbs. I was fortunate because I witnessed the unquestioning and generous help that ordinary Albanians were giving the refugees, mostly total strangers to them. However, it was harrowing to visit one of the hospitals and hear the stories of some of the women who were brave enough to tell what had happened to them. Some had been gang-raped by soldiers, some had been brutally raped and then abused with rifle butts, broken bottles and, in one case I heard of, with burning plastic bottles. Noble Lords can imagine the suffering.
The trauma is suffered on many levels. There is appalling physical injury and infection to be dealt with. There is great mental suffering. Children may have witnessed the rape of their mothers and are deeply traumatised as well. Husbands may reject or leave a wife who has been raped. There is social exclusion from the group, and shame heaped upon the victim by the community. Many women do not admit what has happened to them because of this.
If pregnancy results from the rape, support and counselling will be needed for the victim, although I think the idea of proper counselling in conflict zones is just pie in the sky. The majority of women will want safe abortion; without safe abortion provision, women who have been raped will try to end the pregnancy by unsafe means. The International Conference on Population and Development, held by the UNFPA in Cairo as long ago as 1994, stated in its programme of action that human rights abuses occur when a woman is forced to carry an unwanted or unviable pregnancy; this is degrading and causes mental suffering especially when the pregnancy is the result of rape.
I was not going to repeat the legal arguments but I think we have time to remind ourselves. As my noble friend has told the House, under the Geneva Convention, women who have been subjected to rape as a weapon of war fall into the category of “wounded and sick” and should have equal access to medical treatment. The UN Convention Against Torture recognises that safe abortion is a necessary element of complete medical services for injuries resulting from torture. Rape is torture, and the denial of correct medical treatment after rape is therefore, in itself, cruel and inhuman treatment—torture, in other words.
The purpose of this debate is to try to clarify just what treatment women can get from the humanitarian programmes provided by DfID. Despite President Obama’s lifting of the “global gag” rule when he came in office, abortion is still effectively banned as part of US humanitarian aid, as we have heard, which ignores the fact that the USA recognises girls and women raped in armed conflict as victims of torture. The UNFPA receives funding from the USA and would lose its funding from that source if it was using money from other donors, such as us, for abortion in the same field of operation. The UK Government have been exemplary in recognising the need for safe abortion as a necessary part of treating women who have been raped in conflict, but some of us have had confusing replies when we have tried to establish whether the USA ruling is preventing other countries doing this work when funds are pooled by agencies such as UNFPA.
On a slightly different matter, I also ask my noble friend the Minister to what extent emergency contraception—hormone—pills are used after rape. Emergency contraception is not abortion; it prevents ovulation. It can be taken up to two days after intercourse; five days for some of the new products which are becoming available. Intra-uterine devices can also be used up to five days after sexual intercourse and will prevent ovulation if they contain copper. These methods are very easy to administer. They are cheap and do not carry quite so much baggage as surgical abortion for people working in the field.
If the evidence is lacking, will research be commissioned urgently so that we can live up to our legal and moral obligations to minimise the terrible suffering of victims of conflict and sexual violence?