Humanitarian Emergencies: Women’s Rights Organisations

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that women and girls have to be part of the decision-making process. That was very much felt at the Syrian conference, where I met a number of women who told me, in their own testimonials, how powerless they felt and that they wanted meaningful engagement. The work that we have done and the announcements we made last October demonstrated our further commitments to ensuring that, wherever we have peace conferences and summits, we will have representation of those women’s voices at the table. But we have much more to do. I agree with the noble Lord that so much more needs to be done across the board, across all agencies and donor countries, to ensure that those voices are heard and that they make a meaningful contribution. I look forward to Members across this House helping us to ensure that that message continues to be loud and clear.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, are the House and the Government aware that, unfortunately, men in many Muslim countries work as barriers between Muslim women and their Koranic rights? It is therefore essential that the right help is given to the women to exercise their God-given rights—but it has to be direct, because their male colleagues would not like to accommodate them.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, we advocate very strongly strengthening the voice, choice and control of women’s and girls’ rights in all settings. The noble Baroness is right that we need to work tougher and harder to make sure that we act as strong advocates for women’s voices in countries where they are not being heard.