Crime: Domestic Violence

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that the figures on this are appalling. Globally, one woman in three is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime, which is utterly unacceptable. We are working with all international organisations, and nationally as well, to try to raise this issue. It is a focus, as the noble Baroness will know, of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March. My honourable friend Lynne Featherstone is leading the delegation from here; that commission is focusing on violence against women and girls. The Foreign Secretary is focusing on this as part of our leadership of the G8 this year and, of course, it forms part of the discussions on the MDGs as we take them forward. It is extremely important. It is about time that it is on the agenda and we seek to tackle it.

[Lord Chidgey]

One of the cruellest and most insidious forms of domestic violence is that among young girls, some as young as four, who are subjected to female genital mutilation, or FGM, as it is known. There are more than 100 million women in the world suffering from the effects of that, mostly in Africa, and as many as 3 million young girls a year are at risk from this form of mutilation. Can my noble friend the Minister say whether the Government, in their development programme, are helping NGOs such as AWEPA on the ground—in the villages and at the grass roots—to try to stop this rather revolting and dangerous form of mutilation?

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right that this is a terrible practice, which we seek to counter both in the United Kingdom and overseas. We are funding civil society organisations which are working to end the practice in Ethiopia and Kenya, and my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone is developing a major new programme to address FGM. We know that work with communities, as my noble friend says, including affected women and girls is key to ending the practice. Organisations such as AWEPA, which engage parliamentarians, are crucial in bringing about the change that we all need to see.