UN Women

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I am sure my right hon. Friend would not wish to suggest that there is a continuum of exploitation and a point on that continuum at which women—or, indeed, men—ought to be satisfied to find themselves located. He raises an important issue about the relative roles women perform in paid work and the domestic sphere.

The economic justice questions that we are discussing are not just challenges for developing economies; they are a challenge for us here in the UK too. As we know, here in the UK women struggle to balance caring responsibilities with paid employment. The majority of child care is still undertaken by women, and although many men fulfil caring roles, it is women who are most likely to drop out of paid employment when they start to have caring responsibilities. Many male carers perform their caring responsibility alongside paid work however, and as a result do not suffer the same degree of economic disadvantage.

In recent years, the debate about the appropriate balance and recognition we should give to paid work, domestic responsibilities and caring responsibilities has become distorted, and we need to revisit that. That is not in order to trap women back in the domestic sphere, but to open up a debate about the value we should give to the caring role, and to make sure our societal structures properly recognise that role and offer both women and men a genuine choice about participating in paid work and wanting, and needing, to take time to fulfil domestic responsibilities. That is not an argument that, when I was as a young feminist in the 1980s, I would have believed I would have heard myself making. However, as I have watched that choice for women squeezed out by successive male-led Governments of both the left and the right, I have to say that a gender issue is a choice issue, and choice and economic independence go hand in hand.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that carers play a central and vital role in our society and that without their playing that role our social care system in this country would entirely collapse?

[Kate Green]

I certainly do and, together with the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), I am very proud to be a parliamentary ambassador for carers week this year. I hope that we will have the opportunity to highlight exactly the sort of contribution that carers make and to which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) refers.

I wish to take a moment to talk specifically about the position of lone parents, which was the subject of hot political debate 10 or 15 years ago. It has rather dropped off the political radar but, regrettably, that is not because their battle is entirely won. It is still the case that more than 90% of lone parents are women—lone mothers—but it is very important to recognise that very few women have set out to bring up their children alone. None the less, one in four children in this country will spend some time in a lone parent family, and those children and families face an exceptionally high risk of poverty. Of course it is right that we should do all we can to sustain sustainable relationships, but it is not the mark of a civilised society that we allow those who are growing up in households where relationships have ended to find that they do so in poverty.

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[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to today’s debate and to follow Members who have covered so many important gender equality issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) in particular spoke powerfully on the issue of domestic abuse.

I wish to focus on issues affecting women in conflict zones. As chair of the all-party group on women, peace and security, I, like the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), visited New York in February. I did so not only to celebrate the launch of UN Women, but to try to understand the impact that the new agency will have on women, peace and security policy and to find out where it will fit in the now bewildering architecture of the UN.

Major-General Cammaert, the former UN peacekeeping commander in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said the following in 2008:

“It is now more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in modern conflict.”

That reflects the exponential growth of conflicts that target civilians, especially women and girls, as a means of intimidation and ethnic cleansing. Last year, 14,591 new cases of sexual violence were reported in the DRC, many of which were described so eloquently by the hon. Lady. The abuses that these women are subjected to are among the most horrific ever imagined. As if the international community’s failure to protect them is not bad enough, these women are then routinely denied justice or any engagement in the peace and reconciliation negotiations that follow.

As most hearing this debate will know, Security Council resolution 1325 finally recognised, in 2000, that sexual and gender-based violence in conflict, and women’s participation in peacebuilding, were the responsibility of the UN Security Council and a security priority. Since then, there has been no shortage of supportive language reaffirming the Security Council’s commitment to the cause. Governments and civil society alike have welcomed this progress, but beneath the rhetorical gloss, cracks in the masonry of international commitment are easy to find.

Although the UK has a good record in this area—it is considered the unofficial Security Council lead on resolution 1325—there are those, both here in the UK, as well as in the international community, who disagree that resolution 1325 is a security issue at all. Others accept that sexual violence should be addressed as a security issue alongside other protection of civilian issues, but believe that women’s participation in peacebuilding is a development issue which can be left until after the peace has been made.

The impact of that inconsistency can be seen in the recent emphasis that has been put on tackling sexual violence as a 1325 priority. Security Council resolutions 1820, 1888 and 1960, and the appointment of the Secretary-General’s special representative, Margot Wallstrom, all represent significant and vital progress on tackling sexual violence, but they also show that in the current geopolitical climate it is easier to get action on the protection of women than on participation of women. The impact on the ground is clear. The DRC has seen the groundbreaking conviction by a mobile court of the senior commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kibibi, and eight other soldiers for their role in a mass rape in the eastern DRC. That is a huge step in ending the impunity of perpetrators of sexual violence, but the DRC is still one of 31 current armed conflicts arising from failed peace processes and not a single one of those peace processes included women at the negotiations. Despite all the vocal support for resolution 1325, there has so far been negligible improvement in women’s participation in peacebuilding.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful and important case. Does she share my anxiety that if what is happening in Afghanistan at the moment leads to a non-military next stage, unless women are really involved, negotiations with the Taliban could mean that the country reverts to some of the horrors that we have seen there before?

[Nicola Blackwood]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I share her deep concern that women’s rights in Afghanistan may be seen as a cost that can be taken on board in order to achieve peace. I also share her belief that such peace would be unsustainable and would lead to a descent back into conflict.

Everything I have been describing means that the fact that the new head of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, has named women, peace and security as one of her focus areas is highly significant. UNIFEM never had the status or the budget to keep the issue effectively on the UN agenda. The role that Michelle Bachelet manages to carve out for UN Women will, therefore, make or break the future of women’s participation in peacebuilding. The challenges she faces are manifold: she has to attract sufficient funding; she must navigate her way through the impenetrable UN bureaucracy; she must negotiate the web of inter-agency allegiances and territorial claims; and, perhaps most importantly, she must prove herself, through sheer force of personality, as a leader to be reckoned with in the constellation of UN actors.

[Mr MacShane]

Is the hon. Lady aware that, according to a parliamentary answer I received this morning, we will give more than £1 billion to India in the next four years under our development aid heading, despite India having more millionaires and billionaires than we have? I am not against India in any way, but it is rather odd that our allocation of money for international work has so far excluded any UK funding for the very agency that the hon. Lady is so rightly praising.

[Nicola Blackwood]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I shall move on to funding issues soon.

If Under-Secretary-General Bachelet and UN Women cannot achieve the formation of the role that is needed for the organisation, and cannot do so quickly, they will have no hope of beginning to challenge the entrenched gender inequalities that are so prevalent in conflict and post-conflict scenarios. Women’s participation in countries that are now hanging in the balance, such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia—to name an obvious few—will fall back off the agenda at the Security Council and elsewhere. UN Women will have proved to be a useful panacea—a rhetorical device that represents the form of action without the power or the outcomes. On the other hand, if UN Women achieves the formation of that role—there is every hope that it will do so—that might prove to be a turning point and a crucial advance in the argument that peacebuilding and conflict-prevention policies that do not involve women at all levels are fatally weakened and undermine the progress on global stability objectives.

As a historical leader on women, peace and security issues on the international stage, the UK is of course pivotal in whether UN Women sinks or swims. I am glad to see that the coalition Government have signalled in action as well as words their continuing commitment to the resolution 1325 agenda. Central to that commitment are the appointment of the Minister for Equalities as a 1325 champion and the Government’s national action plan to implement 1325, published in November. That plan is a significantly more sophisticated document than its predecessor and includes a robust monitoring mechanism that includes a formal process for reporting to Parliament. That is welcome. I look forward to playing my part in the all-party group in holding the Government to account on their delivery of that plan and its adaptation to developing international situations.

The UK has further opportunities to offer the international leadership necessary to ensure that UN Women lives up to its potential. I shall mention just two. First, the Government’s building stability overseas strategy is being formulated by the FCO and DFID and is intended to set out the Government’s plans for addressing overseas conflict in the future. Given events in Libya, I would say that it is becoming ever more urgent that women, peace and security perspectives should be embedded in that plan, not as an afterthought or box-ticking exercise but as an integral part of the Government’s approach to conflict prevention and resolution.

Secondly, in order for UN Women to achieve its stated aims, which dovetail perfectly with UK foreign and international development policy, it needs UK funding. It is reasonable to wait for the strategic results plan in June before committing a specific amount, but I would like to make a couple of general points on that. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for International Development, has said that DFID requires

“a strategic plan that sets out a clear results framework outlining targets and expected impact.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 596W.]

Will the Minister tell me whether DFID is working with the team that is developing the strategic results plan at UN Women to ensure that it is aware of DFID’s priorities and the criteria for funding?

The amount needs to be appropriate to UN Women’s remit. The United Nations Development Programme’s 2010 budget was $5 billion; UNICEF’s was $3 billion. To play in that ballpark, UN Women needs a budget of at least $1 billion. This is not just about status, although that does matter in setting UN-wide priorities; it is about capacity. DFID’s review of multilateral aid, published last week, stated explicitly that UNIFEM had failed adequately to address gender inequality issues specifically due to “constrained resources”. If UN Women is to have the impact necessary to challenge entrenched gender abuses and inequalities, it needs a reach similar to that of UNICEF.

The UN has set a minimum funding target of $500 million for UN Women, but so far only $55 million has been pledged. The UK has the opportunity to lead the way in funding UN Women. Given the exact correlation between the coalition Government’s stated foreign and international development policy goals and the strategy set out so far by Under-Secretary-General Bachelet, that seems to me like a win-win situation.

In the words of the Nigerian permanent representative to the UN and president of the UN Women executive board,

“no one can run fast on one foot.”

A security agenda that thinks it can do without women’s participation has been a limping beast. Let us hope that UN Women can start being part of the remedy. Let us hope that we can begin to meet our commitments on protection and participation of women in conflict. Let us agree once and for all that these women are far from simply passive victims. They are in fact powerful agents of change and no less than the missing link in our peacekeeping policy.

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[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point. In 2008, Benazir Bhutto was one of the seven women awarded the UN human rights prize, and as my hon. Friend says, we need to highlight such things.

Nearly all the countries in the world have signed up to the UN international convention on civil and political rights, but the key issue is implementation. We must ensure that women have the rights enshrined in such conventions.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the crucial reforms to ensure that women achieve those rights is reform of the security and justice sector? If that does not happen, women will never have the opportunity in some countries to enforce their rights.

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely vital point. We must ensure that there is security and justice. Those elements are enshrined in agreements such as the universal declaration of human rights and the UN conventions on civil and political rights; the problem is that they are not implemented. It is great that countries sign up to conventions, but unless we put them into practice, nothing will change. It is important that they are implemented.

With more women in boardrooms, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass through women’s visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one might think that women had gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally compared with their male counterparts. Women are still not present in equal numbers in business or politics. Globally, women’s education and health are worse than that of men, and there is greater violence against them.

I very much welcome the fact that international women’s day has been marked as an official holiday in 27 countries, such as Afghanistan, China, Moldova, Mongolia and Cuba. I hope in due course that we can move to that position as well.

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[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who took this good opportunity to highlight one of the great injustices in the international world. I believe that by talking about these things and working across the House, we can bring appropriate pressure to bear on such repressive regimes. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for working so hard to secure this debate, and also the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who battled against the forces not of evil, but perhaps of darkness to get this debate on the books. It is greatly appreciated.

I want to speak on the question of what women want. In my view, they want nothing that Mel Gibson has ever been able to offer, but the same things that men want: in this country, they want strong communities, not streets scarred by crime, violence and fear; they want a world-class NHS, not a country in which the chances of surviving breast cancer are worse than they are 20 miles away in France; they want excellent schools for our children where teachers are free to teach, motivate and drive our young people to achieve all that they can; and they want a dynamic economy that creates jobs, generates taxes and means that we can afford strong, robust and sustainable public services. I think that the Government are delivering all those things. For Opposition Members to say that we are ideologically targeting women by cleaning up the messy economic legacy we have been left is frankly absurd and does not do those hon. Members, for whom I have great respect, any favours.

Women and men also want an end to discrimination and injustice in this country and globally, which is why I strongly support the launch of the UN Women initiative, which will work collectively to address some of the problems we have heard about today—for instance, the fact that 70% of the world’s poorest people are women, and that women generate only 10% of the world’s gross domestic product.

I want to use something that has been happening locally in my constituency for almost three decades as an illustration—a microcosm, as it were—of what can happen when the knowledge, resources and commitment of the global north are exchanged with the global south. The Marlborough Brandt Group, which was set up in the wake of the Brandt report, has worked to build exchanges, linkages and transfers between leafy Marlborough and a Muslim community called the Gunjur in south-east Gambia. One of the interesting and unexpected results of those linkages has been the enormous solidarity that has built up between the young women of both communities. The head of the organisation, Dr Nick Morris, e-mailed me to say:

“When I first went to Gunjur 25 years ago village meetings were held under a mango tree and only men were present. Now, 25 years later,”

meetings are still held

“under the same mango tree,”

and women are not only present, but are

“in the front row and are leading the”

programme. He continued:

“A…literacy programme run by women for women in Gunjur and surrounding villages”—

a programme funded by DFID since 1995—

“has empowered women to make choices.”

He quoted the case of Fatou Gibba, who

“went on to study to be a teacher and…now runs the main pre-school in Gunjur where over 2,000 children,”

in what is a small community,

“have had a headstart before attending the Government primary school.”

[Nicola Blackwood]

Given the example that my hon. Friend has just described, does she not agree that the crucial thing that women want is the opportunity to take part in decision making and to choose what is best for their communities, and that where they are involved in these processes, they are stronger and produce the more resilient communities that she mentioned at the beginning of her speech?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Involvement in formal and informal decision-making processes is the key to achieving many of the objectives that we all share.

The idea of focusing resources on issues of inequality has enormous local and global benefits. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) said earlier, it is insane to miss out on the opportunity to educate over half the world’s population. Indeed, that is one of the reasons that frequently comes up when I am justifying our laudable commitment to maintain DFID spending. I say, “Look, surely we are all better off if we develop and invest in the world’s poorest populations,” and in this case in the world’s very poorest people.

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[Nicola Blackwood]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one area where we have the opportunity to make up one of the most disproportionate representations is in the area of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects? We have a Government who are happily committed to enhancing the low-carbon, high-tech economy, so does the hon. Lady agree that we could make a lot of progress in this area in a very short time?

[Lorely Burt]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady and I could talk about it all afternoon; unfortunately, I have only two minutes left.

On the continuing vexatious issue of pay, the gender gap is still more than 15%. I am disappointed that we did not enforce section 78 of the Equality Act 2010, which required companies with more than 250 employees to introduce pay reporting. If companies are not held accountable for the inequalities they perpetrate, what incentive is there for them to change? They remain able to sweep the figures under the proverbial carpet and carry on paying women less than men.

That is why I have today tabled early-day motion 1571 on the gender pay gap, which urges the Government to look again at the issue in 2013 and legislate to introduce pay reporting if a marked improvement is not seen in the next 18 months. I hope that hon. Members from both sides of the House will be minded to sign this early-day motion. If this threat stays over the heads of the unwilling, we can hope for ongoing improvement. This is one area where we can make all the difference. As to all the other grave issues that other colleagues have raised today, we must all keep fighting to use our relatively privileged position to do all we can to assist.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who was determined not to back down and who received considerable support from my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). That proves that women should not take whatever is thrown at them, but should stand up and be counted—which is what they both did, and I thank them for it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who tabled the motion and who produced an excellent summary of women’s issues both nationally and internationally.

It strikes me that we may have made history today. Probably for the first time in a debate such as this, more Conservative Members than members of all the other parties combined were present at the start. That is a step forward for our party. I also applaud the men who are present for the debate. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), this is not a luxury or fringe issue but one that involves the suffering of human beings and economies, which affects us all. It is therefore important for us all to be here.

Let me begin on a positive note. Women have made significant contributions to society over the centuries. We need only consider Boadicea, the British Celtic warrior queen who led a revolt against the Roman occupation; Joan of Arc; Queen Victoria, who presided over one of the largest empires ever seen; Florence Nightingale; Emmeline Pankhurst; Marie Curie; Mother Teresa of Calcutta; and of course, last but not least, an incredibly talented woman and amazing role model—our former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister in Europe. Evidence suggests, however, that women are being held back from making a full contribution. Internationally, women in all parts of the world still suffer violence and discrimination. Across Europe the average gender pay gap is 17.5%, and in the United Kingdom, despite the Equal Pay Act 1970, men still earn more than women in most job categories.

There are many ways in which we can tackle those issues. I want to focus on two key areas: empowering women and addressing violence against them. There is no doubt that empowering women in the world will be good for the global economy, not to mention the overall security of the world. The United Nations has argued that the empowerment of women is perhaps fundamental to the achievement of many other millennium development goals, given the multifaceted role typically played by women as mothers, leaders, students, decision makers, workers and voters.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that although women make up 70% of the world’s poor, UNIFEM’s budget in 2009 was just 1% of the total UN budget?

[Mary Macleod]

I agree. Much more needs to be done.

I welcome the launch of UN Women and the comments of Ban Ki-Moon, the leader of the United Nations, who said:

“UN Women is a recognition of a simple truth: equality for women and girls is… a basic human right… a social and economic imperative.”

As we have already heard today, schemes to empower women have led to very positive results in developing countries. MicroLoan Foundation, a charity in Chiswick in my constituency, has demonstrated that working on a micro scale often delivers significant benefits. The foundation provides small loans for women in rural parts of Africa to enable them to set up their own self-sustaining businesses. Those who receive the loans—about 20,000 women so far—are treated as business people rather than recipients of charity. They are expected to pay the money back when their businesses are up and running, and an amazing 99% do pay it back. The money is then lent to a new group of women, and a virtuous circle of investment is thus created.

Education is another key part of empowerment, and we still have much to do internationally in that regard. In sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa and south and west Asia, women do not have easy access to education beyond primary level, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). It is therefore incredibly important for us to continue our education work.

Closer to home, much remains to be done to achieve the goal of empowering women, first by putting women on company boards. With the celebration of international women’s day this week and the publication of the Lord Davies report last month, much has been said recently about the need for more women at senior levels in UK companies. The evidence is now clear: companies that have more women at senior levels perform better, with stronger stock market growth, higher returns on sales, capital invested and equity, improved decision making and better corporate governance. Yet only 7.8% of the directors of FTSE 250 companies are women, and more than half of those companies have no women at all on the board. I welcome the publication of the Lord Davies report, and his call for our largest companies to aim for a 25% minimum proportion of women board members. However, I also want to challenge the chief executives of the FTSE 250 companies to include diversity in the performance objectives of senior executives, so that they are measured on that and remunerated accordingly.