Sexual Violence

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, for initiating this debate and for being very consistent on this issue; we had a debate in January on this subject as well. I am extremely grateful to her for continuing the battle.

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, mentioned Angelina Jolie, the UNHCR special envoy, who, in searching for solutions to violence against women, has focused her work on three clear themes that I think have come out in this debate: justice, accountability and international leadership. We need to ensure that we have the tools, sufficient resources and political will. There is no doubt that since the PSVI launch in 2012, the UK has led the world in efforts to end the horror of sexual violence in conflict.

It is a long-haul campaign, and the further international conference to be hosted by the UK in November can be a catalyst for change and further progress. That is what we need to ensure in building up to the November conference. The noble Baroness referred to the Wilton Park event, which was hosted by the Minister—noble Lords have referred to the fact that he is the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict. I hope what comes out of Wilton—I am sure the noble Lord will tell us—will be some concrete recommendations for Governments, international agencies and NGOs on how to strengthen justice at the national and international levels for survivors of conflict. How we build up ongoing support for that November event is the key to this debate, and I hope the noble Lord will be able to tell us what other events are being planned before November to ensure that we have full engagement, not just with NGOs. I would like to see events that broaden this out, so that we get other civil society groups, particularly—I do bang on about this—trade unions and international organisations that can ensure sustainability for the changes we want to see.

What are the remaining challenges we face? The Minister has done excellent work on this, and we heard about the film festival. We have to strongly address action on tackling survivor stigma, when the victims feel they are to blame, and children born of sexual violence. We must also ensure the provision of services for male victims, including LGBT and disabled survivors, and work with military and faith groups—they are the other voices we need to hear strongly at the November conference.

As we have heard in this debate, justice and accountability are vital parts of the strategy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, has said today and on previous occasions, an important element of fighting sexual violence is holding people to account so that they cannot act with impunity. In the January debate, the Minister, whom I congratulate on his ongoing work, called on countries to sign up to the new Murad code on sexual violence, which sets out the expected standards of behaviour. What progress has been made to ensure an international consensus on implementation of that code? How many countries are involved, and what more can we do to ensure that we end up with a strong consensus in November?

Women endure discrimination, violence and the denial of their rights simply because they are women. We must tackle the underlying problem of a lack of empowerment, education and inclusion. We need explicitly feminist foreign and development policies, based on the principles of gender justice, rights, intersectionality and solidarity, so that we tackle the structural causes of gender inequality, transform gender norms and challenge patriarchy in everything that the FCO and DfID do. The way to do that is to expand the support which I know is being given to grass-roots women’s organisations, stepping up assistance to support partner Governments committed to reducing gender inequality: for example, through gender audits, gender impact assessments and gender budgeting. We can lead the way and support other Governments.

We need stronger political leadership globally, where women’s rights are under attack. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, on the attack launched by President Trump. We need to champion women’s sexual and reproductive health rights and certainly mitigate the impact of those US-led funding cuts. We also need to more to protect women human rights defenders by promoting the right to freedom of association, assembly and expression.

I have another point on which I would like to hear more from the Minister. Exactly how are the strategies we have been adopting in the FCO being dealt with on a cross-departmental basis? How do we build capacity to respond rapidly to sexual and gender-based violence in emergencies? Obviously the MoD, the FCO and DfID all have an important role to play in this and I would certainly like to hear how those cross-departmental strategies are working.

I apologise for not writing down the name of the noble Lord who spoke of this, but the plight of the Rohingya people must be in all our minds. Horrendous sexual crimes have been committed. It is apparent that thousands of women refugees in Bangladesh have still not received support or counselling following their experiences of sexual violence, and they have not been able to make witness statements. Can the Minister tell us how many of the UK’s 70 sexual violence experts have been deployed to those camps? Are we making progress?

This is one of those areas for which I think there is complete cross-party support and I hope that the noble Baroness will continue with her hard work to ensure that we build up to a successful conference in November. In that way we will ensure that there is a proper catalyst for change.