International Women’s Day

Lord Addington Excerpts

Friday 8th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in a debate like this when one is part of a distinct minority, it is about saying to our sisters of the day, “A small phalanx of brothers are here with you now”. All I can say is that I hope we add to the contributions, listen and carry your messages back to our colleagues.

I am going to make a speech that I do not think will be mirrored in any other part of this debate because I am going to talk about the role of sport, in particular one sport where, let us face it, the stereotypes, although they are changing, are predominantly male: rugby union. I will talk about how it, used in certain aspects in the world, has become—probably slightly unwittingly—an engine for empowering the female of the species.

I mention the Atlas Foundation, started by one Jason Leonard, who held a big, traditional rugby dinner. He said, “Let’s help children abroad improve their educational standards. Let’s do it wherever we can get a volunteer through a rugby-based charity. Throw a rugby ball in, get children running around and get them organised. Feed them and encourage them into education”. What we have discovered is that, if the hands grabbing the ball are female, we get better bang for our buck. Everything is better. We get higher education completion, but one thing that I do not think we expected to discover is that the attitude of the men round the women, when they find the women taking part in the projects, improves as well.

It helps when you get men and women taking part in activity together and being seen, at least in the initial phase, as completely equal. The gender reality is that you have to break up the groups after puberty but, before puberty, children running around can generally do it together. Rugby is a good sport for this because you have a strong authority figure in the middle. We do not have rules; we have laws. We have to have people imposing those laws, which means that we have good, strong authority figures. It also means that it is difficult to do on a casual basis, so there are swings and roundabouts there, but this is a sport that has done it. It is basically a case of getting people together, feeding them to keep them coming, giving them health checks—in the case of girls, it is often about giving them female sanitary products and helping them through period poverty as well—and encouraging them into education. You get good results. It will come as no surprise to this House to know that, if you get girls into school, they get good results. They generally outperform boys because they generally prefer school to boys and have a better relationship with it.

The main thing that struck me in the projects from Memphis, Tennessee, to Kerala rugby in west Bengal was the attitude coming back that the boys in the group were supporting the girls. Even given the huge distance between those two projects, the fact is that they are supporting the girls; for example, pregnancy rates are lower. The boys are making sure that the girls are supported. In Kerala, the boys are making sure that the girls are not molested or sexually assaulted on the way to school. They are taking this on; the girls are standing up for themselves and the boys are coming in and backing them up. That attitude of “Bring it together. We’re all together” is something that I hope we can foster.

If a sport can do it, other activities can do it. Of course, rugby is a macho sport so it is easy, but anywhere you do this, you are going to improve things. Also, attitudes are changing. In one of our projects in South Africa, we have seen a reduction of 39% in reported rapes. Sexual violence is, I am afraid, a part of life down there. If we can bring these groups together so that they find they are a group that comes together, they will get that support. The male of the species is, for once, behaving sensibly: “Make sure your women are more economically viable because, let’s face it, your life’s going to be easier as well”. It is about making sure that you go down there and that the girls, who will become women, are going out there and finishing their education. They will have children later. In Kerala, there has been a reduction of 85% in the rate of child marriage. Just think about that. People are finishing school and going on.

Out of all the projects I must mention, Kerala has a remarkable record of producing female rugby internationals. Our project in Memphis is the same, where 80% of the staff are female, I think, as are 65% of the participants. This is being taken up in this country. The Atlas Foundation has a wonderful online fundraising package, which I encourage all noble Lords to buy into—if I do not say that I will be killed at the next board meeting. Our star project is TackleLondon, which again is predominantly female in its participation.

If rugby can do this, and if sport has the ability to improve women’s image and attention, and can encourage schooling, we can use it to back up all the other things that have been said today. We can also bring in the male of the species to help. There must be lessons that can be learned and applied to back up all the other good work that has been talked about.