Gavi: Covid-19

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

Yes, I can give that commitment. Kate Bingham, who was just appointed head of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, has outlined that one of her two immediate aims is

“to ensure adequate global distribution of vaccines to bring the quickest possible end to the pandemic.”

It is important that we support the private companies that are developing this vaccine to do so.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, how are the Government working with partners and retaining our commitment to childhood immunisation programmes and reproductive health services for women, particularly in many of the refugee camps—including the largest one in Bangladesh—and enabling localised solutions, in light of many global health emergencies? They include a shortage of PPE for health workers as they enter the camps.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are working closely with the UN agencies and NGOs in refugee camps to ensure that they continue to provide the life-saving SRHR support that they do, and that we provide them with the correct healthcare equipment, which they distribute to keep people safe.

Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the UN fact-finding mission has concluded that ethnic cleansing has occurred against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya in Rakhine state. I indeed saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s evidence. We want a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Myanmar with the military under full civilian control. We will work with the civilian Government to help achieve this but, of course, we must continue to work with our international allies to see the Government of Myanmar deliver it.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that Bangladesh is to be not only commended but continuously supported for its sterling efforts to manage this global humanitarian crisis? The Minister may be aware that a large delegation of parliamentarians from both Houses recently went to the refugee camps to see the work going on, particularly the impact of the work of DfID, the International Rescue Committee and others on women and children. Will she meet some of us so that we might update her on the current situation, which is dire? Perhaps other Members of the House would be interested in attending with her and her officials.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I also visited the camps in October last year—I think it was just after the parliamentary delegation. The conditions there are indeed terrible. We have seen some welcome improvements. We have invested heavily in the camps. The Bangladesh Government have recently accepted that the Myanmar curriculum can be studied, which is a significant step forward. We are investing in shelter there as well as in women-friendly space. I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness and others who have visited to understand what they have seen.

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope my noble friend will be pleased to note that in 2018 I attended the Commission on the Status of Women. I found it incredibly useful, and our voice was very influential with a number of states.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness’s question. If and when our Government decide that we should have representation on the committee or on any other international bodies, will she and her Government make sure that it reflects the diversity of women in our country?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said, we have so many women to choose from, not least from your Lordships’ House. I am sure that the woman chosen will be the best woman for the job.

International Widows Day

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I add my tribute and thanks to my noble friend Lord Loomba for his outstanding service in making a difference to the lives of widows. Over many years, he has campaigned for the rights of widows around the world. It is thanks to the Loomba Foundation’s relentless dedication that we have International Widows Day on 23 June. Alongside my colleagues, I also remember the relentless efforts of Margaret Owen, who was a true champion and a friend.

According to a 2018 report from the Office for National Statistics, 6.6% of the population of England and Wales are widows, the majority being female and over the age of 65. The UK is considered to have made substantial progress on the rights of women, but we cannot take comfort that many of those advances have eradicated the endemic inequalities which persist in many sections of our society, including widows, who often experience sudden social ostracisation, lack of financial standing and legal discrimination. A number of women I have spoken to say that they have experienced isolation and had no idea about the services available to them on becoming a widow in respect of housing, employment and financial and legal support.

The legal, social and economic obstacles that widowed women face are prevalent not just in the UK but globally, as reported by the Loomba Foundation. The treatment of widows continues to be gendered and hostile, forcing widowed women into a state of invisibility. It is the unpalatable truth that over many decades, we have engaged in war and division internationally, by partaking in one conflict or another. As a result, millions have experienced displacement and widowhood. Equally, I would like to draw the House’s attention to our international efforts in supporting women in the aftermath of wars and conflict. However, humanitarian crises are all too prevalent, as are the numbers of women facing unprecedented hardship, particularly when they have lost their partners and family members.

During the reconstruction phase in a country, it is incumbent on us to show equal conviction in addressing the needs of women-headed families and the widows and children who are suffering as a direct result of conflict and wars, in which we are often a partner. Whether in Iraq, which has been mentioned, or Syria, or Palestine, widows are the end result of these interventions. Therefore, for the sake of both our national credibility and our proclaimed moral responsibility, we must put equal, if not greater force, into rebuilding communities as we do into the wars that destroy these countries.

Personally, I have had the honour of speaking to a number of Bangladeshi women who were raped by the then Pakistani army in 1971, and who were subsequently widowed. Although these events happened more than 40 years ago, the suffering of many of these women did not end until they faced death. For thousands of them, justice never came. I am deeply saddened to hear from noble Lords’ contributions today that many hundreds of thousands of women who have experienced rape and torture in wars since then are still waiting for justice and reparation.

We have an incredible passion for international development and are working across the globe. As a woman, I do not wish to see the international community turn a blind eye to Yazidi or Kurdish women, or the women of Palestine, Kashmir, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq or Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who are crying out for the justice and support they deserve. Noble Lords are acutely aware that many widows have young children who are dependent on them. Indeed, the children themselves have often witnessed or been subjected to rape, torture and violence.

As has been said, during the 2018 debate, the then Minister said that 9.8 million women and girls had received humanitarian assistance. So I ask the Minister: do we keep statistics on where widowed women fit into the humanitarian framework? I also add my own personal call for a UN rapporteur for widows.

It would be helpful to have some understanding of the humanitarian efforts that Britain makes and whether staff are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed for dealing with the issues of widows, particularly in the aftermath of conflict and war. Debates aside, what will Her Majesty’s Government do to assess and evaluate our current policies and services, to see whether they stand up to scrutiny in ensuring the safety, security and economic dignity of widows both in the UK and globally?

Syria: Idlib Attacks

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I spoke earlier about the importance of using our position at the UN to make progress on this. As I said, there is a meeting today, and we very much hope to see some progress on that. It is important that we work closely with our international partners on this, move as one and gather the evidence. The important thing is to ensure we see a de-escalation in the violence there, but we need to be realistic about what leverage we actually have.

On Turkey and the reports that the noble Baroness mentions, we are of course closely monitoring the situation in north-east Syria. We are concerned about the humanitarian impact of any possible Turkish military action on both the civilian population and, indeed, humanitarian actors. We have made our concerns clear to Turkey on that and remain in close contact with our partners to ensure we have contingency planning in place to protect locally based humanitarian aid workers and civilians and to ensure that all their needs are met if we see any military action.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I add my gratitude to all the NGOs working in these very difficult circumstances—especially Islamic Relief, an organisation that has been there right from the outset of the emerging conflicts. It is doing amazingly outstanding work.

Is the Minister aware that the civilian casualties extend to the huge number of women incarcerated in Syrian prisons? To the best of my knowledge, there were 13,000; there are now at least 8,000. An organisation called Conscience Movement has looked into this and reports that a massive number of women have been raped, tortured and widowed—many of their partners have been killed—so what are our Government doing to ensure that some international representation is made to bring attention to this terrific, ongoing impact on particularly vulnerable women?

[Baroness Sugg]

I join the noble Baroness in praising the work of Islamic Relief. We were delighted recently to aid-match the funding for its Ramadan appeal. It does incredible work, both in Syria and around the world.

I had not seen the figures on women in prisons. Of course, violence against women and girls is abhorrent wherever we see it. One of the important things is to ensure that, when we face humanitarian crises, our response takes that into account from the outset. I recently attended a conference in Oslo to ensure that humanitarian aid properly takes into account how we can help women from the very outset of a crisis.

Women’s Rights: SheDecides Day

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The convention at the World Humanitarian Summit set out a number of ambitions in this area. We have incorporated those into our global strategy for our work with our intentional partners, which is unaffected by the events of Brexit.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that, in upholding women’s rights globally, we have fundamentally failed the women of Syria, of whom 8,000 are being raped and tortured in unlawful detention? As well as the great work of SheDecides and Plan International, is he aware of the Conscience Movement’s work, and will he ensure that it is supported in its endeavours to release the women detained unlawfully in Syria?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to give a commitment to look at that. We have been at the forefront of work with our partners on the UN Security Council to document what has been happening in Syria to women and girls who have been subject to appalling violence to ensure that those crimes are thoroughly investigated and those who are responsible are brought to justice.

International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a real privilege to follow the noble Baroness, and I salute her for her dedication to asylum seekers and women who are detained. It is an honour to take part in these yearly events, these annual discussions and debates; it is very uplifting. I speak today in recognition of the centuries of our common struggles freely to participate in the workplace and public life, not because of nostalgia but because we are still plagued by the inequality spoken of so eloquently by so many noble sisters—sorry, noble Baronesses—across the House.

We have achieved some progress in women’s representation in the public arena, but the obstacles that women continue to face in all societies are also faced by Muslim women in Britain. This is exactly what I want to talk about today, as well as speaking about women in Britain. That is not my usual thing—I like to talk about women everywhere—but I thought it would be good to do so, given that we are celebrating this amazing century.

In this decade, Muslim women have become a symbol of many ills of our society, and I have spoken about this many times in this House. Many counterterrorism policies look specifically to women’s role in preventing radicalisation. Sadly, this is an oversimplification, if not a deliberate confusion, of Islamic traditions with the constraint of patriarchal, societal proscriptions and practice. It should therefore not be specifically odd that Muslim women also experience discrimination within their families.

What is of significance is that many women are frustrated too often by having to negotiate choices between emancipation within the home and the workplace and the challenges that they face from Islamophobia. Thousands of women, whose voices are not heard often enough, are frustrated about how Muslim women feel ill-perceived, defined and judged not by their contribution, their presence or their intellect but by their clothing, culture and faith. This generalisation reinforces divisions. It is dangerous and simply wrong, and keeps Muslim women in particular out of power and office.

To address these inequalities as lawmakers, we have to demonstrate that we are prepared to be bold, lead by example and address the issue of discrimination prevailing in society that is the pervasive obstacle to the progress of women and, particularly, to Muslim women’s leadership. So it pleases me no end to speak of my passion for the campaign “Change the Script” by the National Commission on Muslim Women—I refer to my interests in the register.

The campaign sets out opportunities for Muslim women to write their own narrative, which is often marred by misconceptions and reduced to debates about so-called religious oppression and unforgiving and biased statistics about terrorism and Muslim women’s veils. Over the past couple of years, endless conversations have taken place, both in this House and across different parts of the country, with the commissioners, with women and with women-led groups on how to redress the current and mainstream discourse about Muslim women. We have been doing it rather quietly, but it is good work and we will let it speak for itself.

Dismal statistics on employment, education and attitudes to citizenship that are published in various reports do not tend to reflect the entire truth. British Muslims contribute £31 billion to the economy, and countless thousands of talented Muslim women in every profession contribute to make today’s vibrant multicultural, multifaith Britain but remain unheard in the public space. Hence the “Change the Script” campaign, which has just begun, celebrates the incredible achievements of British Muslim women and their contributions to this society over decades that have silently shaped Britain.

The campaign aims to reflect the experiences and strengths of Muslim women, as well as the challenges that they face, by documenting and highlighting their presence in every part of society, every profession and every community and by sharing their stories through the social media campaign #WriteYourScript, a website and an exhibition, alongside publications and forums held across various cities. We have been speaking to women up and down the country, who want their voices, stories and opinions amplified in a positive way.

From community activists, artists, entrepreneurs and stay-at-home mothers to doctors, teachers, lawyers and scientists, thousands of exceptional Muslim women have made a difference to the society that we live in. Take, for example: Humera Khan and Khalida Khan, who set up the pioneering women’s project An-Nisa 35 years ago; Shahien Taj from the Henna Foundation in Cardiff; Polly Islam, who has worked on mental health in Bangladesh, Luton and Rohingya camps in various places; neuroscientist and Ealing councillor Dr Aysha Raza, who is making waves in the male-dominated STEM field; or the artist Siddiqa Juma, who has just won the Leonardo da Vinci Universal Artist Award and has put Islamic art on a mainstream platform. Just this morning, I visited the outstanding work of the Limehouse Project, led by Farida Yesmin. The list is incredible, and seemingly endless, and I would be honoured to talk about every single amazing woman who is defying the stereotypes of Muslims, but sadly time is not on our side.

We all know that achieving social change is a mountain to climb and overcome, and I hope the Minister will assist in generating awareness of these gifted women. We are determined to go beyond public profiles and listing their testimonies; we are documenting them with a publication celebrating their presence, and we are hoping to mount a wall of 100 Muslim women, celebrating the centenary of women’s suffrage as they perceive their world—a small legacy, a gift to our mothers, daughters and granddaughters. Our goal is to ensure that the work is shared with schools and higher education institutions, allowing steps to be taken to address pressing matters in relation to employment and education and increasing the number of mentors for young women.

We wish to see more Muslim women portrayed positively in the public sphere, and on this auspicious and important day for women, 8 March 2018, there is no better way to raise their voices in any campaign that the Government are leading. There have been 100 years of resistance as we celebrate women’s right to vote in Britain. As a first in the Labour movement in this House, I share the pride in achieving 2,008 women MPs—I am sorry, that should be 208; that was wishful thinking, a Freudian slip and all that—of whom six have been Muslim women. However, on every national and international platform men continue to assert and define our rights. Surely time is up for them.

#MeToo grew up among strong women. My amazingly courageous mother, who came here all by herself with five children 46 years ago and raised us, did so among men—both my grandfathers—who honoured women in their families, whether they chose careers or simply stayed at home, regardless of the cultural taboos of their generation. I look forward to the day when we can celebrate equality and justice for all women regardless of their status, race or religion, wherever they are in the UK.

Developing Nations: Technical and Vocational Education

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

Absolutely. Again, the UK should be congratulated on the work that we are doing as a Government to ensure that disability features strongly in all our programmes. On disability in schools, we made a commitment in 2013, as the noble Baroness will be aware, that we will directly fund schools only where there is disability access. The disability review is coming up on 3 December, and, if the noble Baroness is interested, I would be very happy to share the outcome of that with her.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I know that the noble Baroness is well aware of the work of BRAC in Bangladesh, in particular, in revolutionising women’s employment and entrepreneurship. Can she tell us what work BRAC is doing to advance in that arena to diversify those women’s employment opportunities through technical and vocational training—perhaps including computer training?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I will not specifically go into that programme, because we should be proud of our programme across DfID. That is about increasing employment—productive employment—for women. As I said, they start from school, where we give them the opportunity to gain an education and skills. We can then develop to ensure that they are both productive economically and, where they are unpaid, able to use those skills to develop entrepreneurialism outside their workplaces. I read in a recent report that if we give women opportunities, we can add $28 trillion-worth of value to our global GDP.

Developing World: Women

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in this debate. I thank my noble friend Lord Loomba for calling it and for his consistent efforts in championing widows and calling Governments to action—and, of course, for securing the UN’s support for designating 23 June as International Widows Day. I, too, salute Margaret Owen, who I know, respect and admire. Her work is outstanding.

The empowerment of all women has been close to my heart since early in my life, as we lived through the war of independence in 1971. I remember all too vividly women, like my mother, endangering themselves and playing a crucial role in protecting families and fighters, when more than 300,000 women suffered rape as a weapon of war by the Pakistani army. For those women, no apologies or reparations have been made to date by the Pakistani Government.

I am all too familiar with what happens to women and their families in war and conflict, especially those who are left widowed, as members of my family were. Here at home I have had the privilege of leading and developing services for women in the East End of London since the 1980s. Many of these women’s organisations continue to serve women’s needs and their families today. I never tire of speaking about the need for us to continue to speak about women’s resilience, because progress and change are all too slow in coming.

In our parliamentary work, we often benchmark other countries’ progress by the numbers of women in Parliament and public life, so it is pleasing that for once we have a new benchmark of 191 women MPs—a jump from 22% to 29% of women in Parliament. Here I must add my welcome and congratulations in particular to new Asian women MPs, including Dr Rupa Huq, Tulip Siddiq, Nusrat Ghani, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and Naz Shah. Despite this progress, women leaders remain miserably absent from the world stage. Given that we are discussing conflict resolution, the question arises about the differences that would arise if more women were on the global stage.

It is a fact that today’s world is populated by wars and conflict, with the Middle East and many parts of Africa in flames. Thus, women remain vulnerable, in many conflicts, to rape being used as a weapon of war, while the peace process historically kept women outside and on the periphery of decision-making and peacebuilding, as has been said by many noble Lords. Women and girls continue to be devalued in the wider society, while sexual violence against women and girls remains pervasive in all societies, including our own. So it should not surprise us that women and children are the major victims in conflict and wars. As we speak, women are silenced by perpetrators in Burma, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere.

Against this backdrop, UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for increased participation of women in peacebuilding and peace negotiations, has been the single most important trigger for national plans worldwide, including our own honourable contribution in the summit held here in London two years ago, ably led by our former Foreign Secretary. Since then, there has been a significant and steady shift in the number of women leading peace processes, including the fact that we currently have 39 women leading UK overseas missions—seven more than in 2010. No doubt the UK Government, through their national action plan, will continue to up the numbers of women in leadership positions to aid conflict resolution in order to make the same difference overseas.

Equally, the United Nations contribution to bringing women into the political forum in developing countries is significant. There are numerous positive examples of resilience and change. Through UN Women, Muslim women groups have taken part in the Mindanao peace process in the Philippines and have met representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to discuss the provision of draft peace agreements, with the aim of resolving one of the Philippines’ protracted conflicts. The front took the unprecedented step of appointing two women to its peace panel, which is engaged in talks with the Government of the Philippines. An additional two women joined the government negotiating team, including one heading its legal unit.

In Kyrgyzstan, the UN Women and the UN Peacebuilding Fund support women’s peace committees and networks of activists to engage women in peacebuilding and reconstruction in the country. Through the use of diplomacy, dialogue and mediation women are developing skills, representing their views and seeking to find solutions for the common good. The committees regularly monitor violations of women’s rights and risks of conflict outbreaks.

Here we see a few positive steps towards gender equality and the erosion of the notion that women have no place in conflict resolution. Fortunately, that is not limited to Asia, as Senegal, Mali, Liberia and Rwanda illustrate the widespread effort to engage women in conflict resolution in Africa. Senegal created the Women’s Situation Room for the 2012 presidential elections. The team was set up with the aim of safeguarding women from election violence, and of supporting women’s protection in campaigning and voting. In Mali, women leaders are trained by UN Women to engage in dialogue and political stabilisation, ensuring that women’s rights and the issue of gender-based violence are addressed.

Courageous women in Liberia, which has been mentioned, challenged social conventions and took the opportunity to become active leaders in political, economic and civil institutions. Women there are facilitating reconciliation efforts and have secured formal roles that allow them to influence the future of their nation. They are the first in that nation to do so, as those roles were previously dominated by men. We should rightly rejoice that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24th president of Liberia—and a woman, for those who did not notice. That is a miracle yet to happen in the most developed part of the world. President Sirleaf has since continued the efforts of her office to challenge the levels of women’s participation in national government and other institutions.

Rwanda has put girls and women at the centre of its Government’s priorities following the tragic genocide and the staggering number of cases of sexual violence. Girls and women now have their core rights and women are now seen as key to the country’s economic and political development.

“Birongonas” is a casual term used for Bangladeshi women who were raped or left widowed by Pakistani soldiers during the war of independence in Bangladesh in 1971. Among them are thousands of abandoned widows. Now they have formal recognition, are classed as war heroines and freedom fighters and share the same rights as soldiers who fought in the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. That is a very good example of what many Governments should do. This is a true form of women’s social empowerment, as it changed the status of women from that of rape victims with no status in society to that of freedom fighters—one of the highest statuses for people in Bangladesh. This example shows categorically what is required in conflict resolution: not just legal protection but supporting and providing resources, along with accepting responsibilities, as a way to aid survivors to live beyond their traumas and devastation. Our current approach is properly emboldened by our national plans being in place, for nothing changes for those who live on beyond rape without hope and yearning for justice and whose lives are shattered for ever. Economic empowerment not only improves women’s domestic rights and the prospects of their children, it also has a positive impact on the entire nation.

Of course, education has an essential role in the empowerment of women, and there are many shining examples of girls’ education improving the lives of women and girls, including in Bangladesh, Jordan and Morocco, which I recently visited, where the presence of female leadership is clearly evident in all aspects of the community and social infrastructures. It is right that we continue our support to these countries through our 0.7% commitment to international aid. We should rightly take pride in that commitment to international aid, but we cannot bulldoze human misery by means of donations from our pockets and temporary handouts to those who have seen the massacre of their lives. I have spoken about my own experience of war as a child, and I can tell your Lordships that the temporary presence of donors does little to alleviate the scars of war.

In conclusion, we should commemorate the international commitments to supporting women’s empowerment, including the national action plan. UN Women has made leaps in progress against the discrimination of women through conventions on gender equality and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These international efforts give us cause for hope that collectively we can work to overcome gender inequality and its pernicious impact on the economic situation of women personally and at the level of nation states.

I join others in celebrating the efforts of women and men around the world to achieve greater equality. The Minister is a great friend and I welcome her to her new brief. Will she assure the House that her department, alongside our civil society, will ensure that we commit to easing the hardship of those who have been raped in conflicts and wars, as the Bangladeshi Government have done?

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and welcome him to the House. In doing so, perhaps I may take the liberty of expressing my long-standing admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Judd. He, too, has been a very good thing for the House.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, on his impassioned introduction and my noble friend Lady Royall on setting out our historic track record in international development work. I have little to add to the expertise of the noble Lord except to say that I support the Bill becoming law. Legislating will bind the cross-party consensus and set an international benchmark for others to consider.

Whatever the political context of their relationship with the British Government, many developing countries have understood and valued the work of DfID, which has trailblazed in progressing and championing maternal health, reproductive rights, education, clean water, post-conflict reconstruction and increasing women’s economic independence. Of course, that success comes from well established partnerships.

Notwithstanding today’s ever growing uncertainties, British aid has been ever present across the globe, developing with NGOs and Governments alike a vision of a healthy and equitable society. I believe that our persistence has inspired and encouraged other donors. The statistics for success are staggering in many parts of the world. Some excellent examples of DfID’s work are cited in the report produced by the Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group, Democracy Soup. I was able to make a small contribution alongside other notable Members of this House to the evidence-gathering and to several round-table discussions with parliamentarians and experts working in the field in Africa. I also had the privilege of working with DfID alongside the NGO sector post-Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of people lost everything to nature. DfID responded to the humanitarian catastrophe, working alongside Save the Children, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Islamic Relief and Muslim Aid. In both those instances, the respect with which the presence of DfID is held in developing countries was evident.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to two specific aspects of DfID’s work: first, the continued commitment of the British Government to the people of Palestine through DfID, which has exceeded £350 million during the past five years, must be commended. It remains one of the largest donors in support of Gaza—as mothers and children begin their journey towards survival—since the brutal assault by the Israeli forces last summer. Here, DfID alone cannot begin to compensate for the loss of livelihood and damage inflicted to infrastructure. I hope that our ongoing financial commitments and expertise will encourage other donors speedily to give attention to this critical situation.

Secondly, I agree with other noble Lords that surely the best work of DfID is its commitment to the advancement of the economic independence of women—I refer in particular to preventing sexual violence across the globe. Such commitment is rooted as an integral part of its value. It has been ongoing over decades, ably picked up and led by the former Foreign Secretary. The Minister will be aware of my long-standing campaign for justice for women in Bangladesh who were raped as a weapon of war in the war of independence. Survivors have since languished over decades, neglected by all parts of society, including their families. However, due to the campaign of the NGOs, the leadership of our Foreign Secretary and the work of some British Bangladeshi women campaigners, the remaining survivors have finally been given national recognition and the status of freedom fighters. This is massively significant, not least for the women survivors, many of whom have endured decades of punishment for crimes that others perpetrated on their bodies and well-being. Will the Minister take this opportunity to congratulate the women campaigners and the Bangladeshi Government on not only being one of the 130 signatories but also issuing directives to provide monthly allowances for all remaining survivors throughout their lives? Does she agree that this is a model of good practice for other countries to follow if we are to begin reparations for those women who survive rape in conflict?

Today’s historic step in legislating our financial commitment has strong roots, emanating from the noble Baronesses, Lady Chalker and Lady Amos, Clare Short and Andrew Mitchell. It is now in the capable hands of Justine Greening. I salute their work and that of the DfID teams across the world in supporting this Bill.