Humanitarian Emergency Response Review
Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Baroness Clark of Kilwinning(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
We are grateful to the Secretary of State—there clearly isn’t a dry eye in the House.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Secretary of State says that he wishes to put women and girls at the heart of his development policy. He will be aware that violence against women and girls is a feature in such crises. How do we deal with that problem better?
Mr Mitchell
It is an absolute priority of the Government to try to stop violence against women—we have some 15 country programmes for which that is an absolute priority. I attended the Home Secretary’s meeting of Ministers yesterday on that very subject, and spoke about the international dimension of it. The hon. Lady may rest assured that it remains right at the top of our agenda. Of course, women and girls suffer most in such crises. We have provided protection for children and displaced women, not least in respect of the Ivory Coast-Liberian border, on which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State leads. That is the most important aspect of the work that we do there.