Afghanistan: Protection and Women’s Safety

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

They are incredibly brave women, and I also pay tribute to the incredibly brave work that my noble friend does in relation to the protection of women’s rights in Afghanistan. As a Government, we support, for example, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. It has a phenomenal chairman, Sima Samar, who puts her life at risk in raising very challenging issues. I assure my noble friend that we will continue to do all we can to make sure that this issue does not fall off the agenda as we draw down our troops.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, will women’s rights and security for women be included as critical indicators of UK progress towards withdrawal and the UK’s post-2014 involvement in Afghanistan?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord will be aware of the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework. Part of that covers human rights as well as the very specific issue of women’s rights. The law on the elimination of violence against women is specifically used as a measure of how Afghanistan is doing against the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework. It is the way in which we measure progress on women’s rights, as well as progress on stopping violence against women. The noble Lord will be aware that, within three to six months following the presidential election, we will be jointly chairing the meeting that will assess Afghanistan’s progress against the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework. That is the main framework that we will carry on using to make sure that progress continues in this area.