Remembrance Day

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Loomba]

My Lords, I wear my poppy with pride, as do many in your Lordships’ House. This weekend, the entire country will observe Remembrance Day and there will be silence for those who gave their lives in the two world wars. Therefore, today’s debate on the eve of Remembrance Day is very important. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, on securing this debate.

It is imperative not only to remember those who sacrificed their own lives to allow us to live in a world of democracy but to teach current and forthcoming generations about this tribulation. Generations have grown up in a country and they do not know its past. They remain unaware that the basic human rights that they expect today are as a result of those who have lost their lives fighting for our rights. History must never be forgotten in case it repeats itself. It should be enshrined for all of us, and we should always remember, that the fruits we enjoy today are products of the selflessness of the millions who gave their lives.

Key issues such as human rights, justice, education and poverty are all deeply connected to our democratic values. However, we must always take the time to remember that the democracy on which our judicial system is reliant today came at the cost of people in other countries. Let us not forget that people from India, the West Indies and Africa, and Gurkhas from Nepal, fought with us and for us in both world wars. At that time there was no Commonwealth; there were only colonies. Soldiers came from all corners of the world. From India alone, more than 1 million soldiers lost their lives.

Unfortunately, war and conflict are not only deeply rooted in the world’s history but are ongoing in our present. The Rwanda and Burundi war literally wiped out hundreds of thousands of people. The international armed conflict in Bosnia took the lives of more than 2 million people, thus making it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. The Democratic Congo Republic, as with events in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, paid a heavy price in efforts to remove dictatorships.

The war in Afghanistan has created more than 2 million widows in a country with a population of only 30 million. After 30 years of civil war, Afghanistan has one of the highest percentages of widows in the world. A very high percentage of these widows are young, illiterate and have children to support. Providing for their children is a daily struggle, and they are forced into begging and prostitution. With the death of their husband diminishing their economic security, they are placed at the lowest level of society and their human rights are eroded.

The children of widows are invariably forced into the workplace at an early age to help support their mothers. These working children are denied their right to an education. Many are forced to beg like their mothers or to work in factories where child labour abuse is common practice. In some cases, girls are forced into marriage at a young age so that they are no longer a burden on their mothers.

War has an ugly face. Ultimately, people pay a heavy price which cannot be measured in terms of consequences such as poverty, hunger, famine and disease. There are no victors in any war.

I declare my interest as a founder chairman trustee of my charity, the Loomba Foundation, which has been working for more than a decade to raise awareness of the plight of widows around the world who have lost their husbands through conflict. There are more than 245 million widows and 500 million children—one section of the world’s population—who suffer in silence due to their loss. More than 100 million widows live in poverty and struggle to survive, and are often soft targets for murder, rape, prostitution, forced marriage, property theft, eviction and social isolation, as well as physical and emotional abuse. Their children do a lot worse. Statistics show that about 1.5 million children of widows worldwide do not live past their fifth birthday.

The Loomba Foundation is proud that last year the United Nations declared 23 June as International Widows Day, which was initially established by the foundation in 2005. I should like to ask the Minister if the British Government would support International Widows Day and pay our debts to war widows.

It is clear that wars are very destructive. We owe it to those who lost their lives fighting for our rights that their memories are not lost, and we should work towards a future that is not riddled with war and conflict but is a united world. Remembrance Day is an event that should have a perpetual place in our history because there is nothing more worthy than giving one’s life to preserve the values that we hold.