Impact of Conflict on Women and Girls

Alice Macdonald Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of conflict on women and girls.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. There are many things that we disagree on in the House, but I hope we will find some clear areas of agreement in this debate. I hope we agree that the impact of conflict on women and girls is undeniable and unacceptable; that women are not only victims but survivors, combatants, leaders and human rights defenders, and their role in preventing and resolving conflict and in peacebuilding is key; and that the UK has a crucial role to play in this area.

I am sure that Members will want to focus on specific geographical areas. I will focus on the overall situation, as well as on two specific conflicts in Sudan and Afghanistan. First, let me set out the situation globally. It only takes turning on the news or scrolling on social media to see that conflict is raging all around us, from Gaza to Sudan to Ukraine. There are many other conflicts that we barely speak about any more, such as that in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by conflict. According to the UN, in 2023 an estimated 612 million women and girls lived within 50 km of a conflict—an increase of 41% since 2015. That number is more than the population of the United States of America and Brazil combined.

The impact of conflict takes multiple forms, from sexual violence to girls losing years of education. Women are dying because of the impact of war. The proportion of women killed in armed conflicts doubled in 2023, compared to the previous year. Sexual violence in conflict has also risen dramatically, with UN-verified cases soaring by 50%—and those are only the ones we know about. Half of those displaced because of persecution, conflict and violence are women and girls who are forced to live far from home or in refugee camps, where often they are still not safe.

Those are some of the most direct impacts, but there are so many more impacts on women’s health, education and freedoms. Women and girls are more likely to go hungry in conflict, and attacks on health facilities impact women and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health care. As Plan International has highlighted, the impact on girls is devastating. Girls schools have been deliberately targeted to stop them going to school, and of the 119 million girls who are out of school, more than a quarter are in conflict or crisis-affected countries.

[Bambos Charalambous (Southgate and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and on her excellent speech.

One of the consequences of war and conflict is disruption to education. The educational void is catastrophic, not just for girls themselves but for their families, communities and nations, too. A lack of education for girls also undermines peacebuilding. Studies show that educated women are key to rebuilding post-conflict societies, participating in governance, and preventing the resurgence of violence. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK must champion the protection of education in conflict zones and hold Governments and militias to account when they attack schools or use them for military purposes?

[Alice Macdonald]

I do agree. Like the previous Government, this Government have done a lot on girls’ education, as did former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who continues to do so. There is not only an impact on girls’ present; it is an attack on their future and on the future of us all.

We have seen the rolling back of women’s rights, and nowhere is this more evident than in Afghanistan, described as the worst women’s rights crisis in the world. The Taliban are steadily erasing women and girls from public life and suppressing every single one of their rights. A female in Afghanistan cannot go to school, cannot go to the park and cannot travel or leave the house without a male chaperone. She cannot work for a non-governmental organisation, which will have a devastating impact on the delivery of aid; she cannot study midwifery or medicine; and over Christmas it was reported that the Taliban have banned windows to stop women even being seen. This is gender apartheid.

I went to Afghanistan in 2011 and met many women who were determined to shape the future of their country. The politicians I met are no longer able to serve. The women who were working in domestic abuse refuges are not working any more—indeed, those shelters are shut. Those women are still fighting for the future of their country; it is their voices and demands that we must listen to, and we must act. That must include heeding their calls to recognise what is happening as gender apartheid, and as a crime under international law. That would mark a historic step towards ending this abhorrent discrimination and send an important message to Afghan women and girls that we stand with them.

The international community and the UK must also make it clear that we will not normalise relationships with the Taliban unless they end their war on women. I know the Minister cares passionately about this issue. Will she tell us what specifically the Government are doing, and whether they will support the calls to recognise what is happening as gender apartheid and pursue it through the UN so that it is treated as a war crime?

We can all do our part. Like others present, I joined many Members of Parliament in signing a letter, organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), to the England and Wales Cricket Board, asking it to speak out and boycott the match against Afghanistan—because all action matters.

I turn now to Sudan, where an estimated 6.9 million people are currently at risk of gender-based violence; where 75% of girls are not in school; where there is evidence of mass and systemic rape; and where women are reportedly committing suicide out of fear of that rape. Evidence shows that women and girls from ethnic minority groups are being deliberately targeted. The accounts are horrific. I read one from a 35-year-old Nuba woman who described how six Rapid Support Forces fighters stormed into her family compound. She said:

“My husband and my son tried to defend me, so one of the RSF fighters shot and killed them. Then they kept raping me, all six of them”.

Sudan has been described as the world’s forgotten conflict. As the UK is the penholder on Sudan in the United Nations, will the Minister set out what we can do now to support women in Sudan and change the situation so that it is no longer the world’s forgotten conflict? Does she agree that the United Nations and the African Union should urgently deploy a mission to protect civilians in Sudan that is mandated and resourced to address sexual violence? Does she think UN member states should bolster support for the UN fact-finding mission, as the Secretary-General has urged, to help to pave the way forward towards meaningful accountability?

Let me turn to Gaza; I know that more Members will speak about the situation in the middle east. As I said in the Chamber recently, there are 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza right now who cannot access the care that they need. Imagine giving birth in the hell that is Gaza right now. If the ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East goes ahead at the end of this month, that will have a devastating impact on everybody, including women and girls, so I hope the Minister will update us on what we are doing to push harder on that front.

Many people may ask why we in the UK should care about this. Why should we care about what is happening to women in other parts of the world? Well, it is the right thing to do, as was set out by the previous Government in their national action plan on women, peace and security. It is also the smart thing to do, because empowered and engaged women mean more secure and prosperous societies. When women’s rights are rolled back anywhere, they are rolled back everywhere.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this vital debate. As she knows, the ongoing climate crisis is making more regions of the world uninhabitable, fuelling conflicts that disproportionately affect women and girls. In humanitarian conflicts, up to 70% of women and girls experience gender-based violence, and we must empower them by elevating their voices and leadership in times of crisis. Does my hon. Friend agree that robust systems must be in place to provide the vital support necessary for women and girls in these times of crisis?

[Alice Macdonald]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution and for raising that important point about climate change, which has a very detrimental impact on women and girls everywhere, and particularly in conflict situations. Indeed, it is a driver of conflict, as we see when it comes to, for example, resource scarcity. I welcome that point and agree that it must be a key part of these conversations.

Let me turn to the action needed. I will focus on three specific areas: international leadership, aid and peacebuilding. This year marks the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. It was hailed at the time as a landmark agreement and included really important measures on protecting women and girls in conflict and supporting their leadership and their role in peace processes.

This year is a golden opportunity to renew the UK’s leadership and, indeed, the international community’s leadership on this important agenda. It is also an opportunity to review the plan that the previous Government set out, because we know that, on many of its elements, we need to do much more. For example, we know that men who commit sexual violence and other atrocities against women and girls still have impunity, so will the Minister update us on what is happening to tackle sexual violence in conflict and hold perpetrators to account? The previous action plan did not include Sudan and the occupied Palestinian territories as focus countries; obviously the situation has changed fundamentally since then, so does the Minister think they should be included in the plan?

Secondly, we know that aid does not always reach women. Only 25% of women affected by conflict receive essential relief and recovery aid. The aid cuts under the previous Government had a devastating impact on women and girls. Will the Minister confirm that we will reverse the trends, including with a specific target for the percentage of official development assistance focused on gender equality, as organisations such as CARE have called for, and that we will invest in women-led and women-focused organisations? Will she also tell us that when we announce packages of humanitarian aid—I welcome the £50 million announced for Syria—we will also ensure that it reaches women and girls?

Finally, women’s participation is not “a nice to have” in any area that we are talking about, and certainly not when it comes to peace processes. Women’s participation is fundamental for effective peacebuilding, but women are still not adequately involved in such processes. Yet we know that when women participate in peace processes, it works. Their participation increases the probability of an agreement lasting more than 15 years by 35%. We have seen women play a really important role in many peace processes, from Libya to Libera to Colombia.

The UK must work actively to promote the fundamentals of the women, peace and security agenda: prevention, participation, protection, and relief and recovery. Women are not victims and women must not be voiceless. The progress that has been made on this agenda would not have happened without the courage and perseverance of women. We must be hopeful for change; in the words of Plan International’s report, still we dream. Indeed, a survey by Women for Women International showed that, across 14 countries, 81% of women are hopeful that there will be change, and that their circumstances will improve in the next five years. But that will not happen without the international community acting.

As this debate progresses, I am sure that we all have in our minds different women and girls who are impacted by conflict, such the Yazidi women; the girls abducted by Boko Haram; the Israeli women slaughtered and raped on 7 October; the women and girls living in hell in Gaza right now, where nowhere and nobody is safe; the women of Ukraine; the women of Iran; and the women of Syria who are hopeful for a better tomorrow. Let us resolve to do what we can as parliamentarians to tackle the scourge of violence against women and girls, wherever it is found and in whatever form it takes.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alice Macdonald]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

I thank all Members who have spoken so powerfully today on this subject. As the Minister noted, two debates on male violence against women and girls have been happening at the same time, and many of us would have liked to speak in them both. Although the contexts are obviously different, many of the themes will be the same—the oppression of women, systematic discrimination, and the need for leadership and determination.

I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their thorough responses to many of the questions we have raised. We see so much consensus on both sides of the House. We have covered a wide range of subjects and geographies—we have gone all around the world—and we have still not covered all the contexts in which women and girls are suffering. We have heard about many statistics and many stories, but importantly we have focused on the solutions; we can spend a lot of time in debates talking about the context without focusing on what we actually need to do. We have heard of the horrors of the direct and indirect impacts of conflict, the horrors of rape and murder, and the horrible realities of daily life for so many women and girls.

At the beginning of the debate I said that I hoped we could find consensus, and I think we have found it on many areas—on the targeting of aid, on the need to involve women in peace processes and on the need for determination and focused leadership. As the head of UN Women said:

“Women continue to pay the price of the wars of men”.

We need to be clear that we are speaking about male violence.

I want to finish by putting front and centre the women and girls who are in conflict zones and who are fighting so hard for their rights, and simply to survive, because it is them we must listen to. I will finish with the words of one of them, Leymah Gbowee, a Nobel laureate and a woman who fought so hard for peace in Liberia. She said:

“You can never leave footprints that last if you are always walking on tiptoe.”

We have heard today that we are not walking on tiptoe on this subject. We will be working at full throttle, with determination, focus and leadership, so that finally, maybe one day, women and girls are not suffering from violence anywhere.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the impact of conflict on women and girls.