Millennium Development Goals: Women and Girls
Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
It certainly must not be allowed to be unfinished business after 2015. The noble Baroness is right that progress has been made—maternal mortality has dropped by 45%—but we need to take that much further forward.
Baroness Turner of Camden (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware—I am sure she is—that, unfortunately, in large parts of the world there is a lot of conflict and fighting, and that it is always the women who suffer the most in such circumstances? What is being done at UN level to see that women who are caught up in battles and fighting are properly looked after? I fear that they are suffering more than the general population. It is women who suffer in these conflicts.
Baroness Northover
The noble Baroness is right that women and girls are especially vulnerable in such circumstances; I was hearing this morning about the particular vulnerability of adolescent girls. She will know that the international community is beginning to address this issue and that DfID is playing a leading role in trying to ensure that, for example, the women and girls displaced in Syria are well supported. She is right, however, that we need to move this further forward.
Women: Wages
Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
My noble friend is right to highlight the different areas that men and women often work in. There is encouraging news in that the gender pay gap has narrowed and is now close to zero for full-time employees under the age of 40. However, you start to see a differential as you move into the older cohorts. That is to do with the areas that people work in and the fact that many more women are working part-time. The median hourly wage for part-time workers is £8.29 as opposed to £13.03 for full-time workers.
Baroness Turner of Camden (Lab)
How many prosecutions have taken place for non-payment of the minimum wage? I ask that because it would be mostly women who were affected among the low-paid workers in this country.
Baroness Northover
That is a very interesting point. I shall get further details.