Covid-19: Refugee Camps

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend is quite right to raise this issue. I recently engaged in a virtual call with Pramila Patten, the SRSG on preventing sexual violence in conflict for the UN. I will be having further discussions on this to ensure that we give maximum support to girls and women who suffer because of conflict—and the Covid crisis brings this into focus.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister pay tribute to the work of Translators Without Borders, which DfID helps to support? Its work with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, for example, found that older women have very limited access to information about Covid-19. It provides support in 89 languages, has produced a multilingual glossary on Covid to help health workers and monitors social media in multiple languages to eliminate fake or inaccurate data—work that no other international organisation undertakes. Will the Minister look positively at TWB’s need for more funding to leverage language technology to meet the needs of refugees?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I fully align with the sentiments of the noble Baroness and of course I will look at all future funding requests.