(6 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register.
The UK was instrumental in ensuring the inclusion of child, early and forced marriage in the Commonwealth communiqué. We deliver our commitments through the Forced Marriage Unit and through our work to end child marriage in developing countries. While there are highly publicised instances of forced marriage and forced conversion, we do not have evidence that this is prevalent at scale. Where it happens, it is context-specific.
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer but, according to the Aurat Foundation, 1,000 Hindu and Christian women and girls are abducted, forcibly converted and married off in Pakistan every year. In India, there are similar allegations of Muslim girls being forcibly converted to Hinduism and married off. Of course, this has also been a feature of Boko Haram’s tactics. Despite the last four communiqués making reference to early, child and forced marriage, none has addressed investigating the interrelationship with forced religious conversion. As chair of the Commonwealth for the next two years, will Her Majesty’s Government commission the necessary research to understand this complex relationship and investigate potential solutions?
I am grateful for my noble friend’s question and I pay tribute to her work with the Commonwealth Initiative for Freedom of Religion and Belief, which has had a significant impact. I draw attention to the very substantial measures on freedom of religion and belief—led by my noble friend Lord Ahmad—that we have already announced, such as a £12 million fund through Aid Connect to look specifically at this. On the specific instance of Pakistan that my noble Friend mentioned, one of the things that we were clear about in Pakistan’s UN review last year was the importance of protecting minority rights and the possible need for an independent commission on such rights. We are doing significant things but we have to be clear that this is not only about the communiqué. The Commonwealth charter talks about the importance of,
“tolerance, respect, understanding, moderation and religious freedom which are essential to the development of free and democratic societies”.
That is why we will continue to hold other states to account and seek to live up to that.
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat is a very good point. It is certainly something that I should look into further and I will write to the noble Baroness with an update.
My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s acceptance of evidence and cases in relation to the treatment of religious minorities that affect aid. However, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, this also affects the resettlement programme. Is it not now time that the UK asked the United Nations to hold an independent investigation into these claims, so that we can know the truth as to whether or not the millions of pounds of aid that has been sent by the UK taxpayer has actually reached the people who most need it?
We discussed that issue this morning. As I said at that meeting, I will look at the readout and the feedback from the meeting taking place on the investigation into the claims in Amman next week, on 23 January, to see whether we need to take further action with the UN to ensure that it upholds its own convention in not exercising any discrimination whatever on the basis of religious belief or identity.
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, in a debate this morning in Westminster Hall, a number of MPs highlighted the correlation between the fragile states in which DfID spends much of its money and high levels of persecution of people on the grounds of faith or belief. I would be grateful if the Minister could assemble a meeting of interested MPs and Peers, particularly with his counterpart the right honourable Alistair Burt, the DfID and FCO Minister for the Middle East and North Africa region, so that we could discuss in detail how DfID’s priorities and programming could support increasing religious tolerance in these fragile countries.
I am very happy to do that and also to invite along my noble friend Lord Ahmad, who leads on religious freedom in these areas at the Foreign Office. Human rights are a fundamental building block of human development. We all appreciate that. Therefore, Article 18 of the universal declaration is a key element. I was looking at the Prime Minister’s words on 28 February when she spoke at a reception in Downing Street. She said:
“It is hard to comprehend that today people are still being attacked and murdered because of their Christianity. We must reaffirm our determination to stand up for the freedom of people of all religions to practice their beliefs in peace and safety”.
We stand by that.