Development: Post-2015 Agenda

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for introducing this debate. As far as I can remember, I have spoken in every debate that she has brought to this Chamber. I have always supported her views and I am very pleased that we have her pushing for these issues. These days I do not cry very much because I am quite a happy person. The only thing that makes me feel tearful—I hope that it will not happen now—is thinking about the nearly 1 billion women in India and Africa whose lives are beyond imagination. It is not as if we can sit here and say, “Well, they have very difficult lives”, or, “It is so bad for them”. No, it is impossible for them. I do not know how they survive.

Yet women do most of the work. We all know that without the work of women, no work would be done at all. When I went to Jamaica, I saw a lot of women doing quite important jobs but they were given no status or importance. I said to them, “Why don’t you go on strike for one day? Just down tools and don’t do anything. If you really feel bad, look after the people who are very sick. But, please, do it for one day because your country will come to a standstill”. That is the situation: the women do the work and the men do not work very much in Africa. They work a bit more in India but do not do anything like the same amount of work as women. However, everything that is available is in the control of men.

For me, inequality is not so much about how much money we have, who should be given what or who should be helped with what. Inequality is between men and women in the developing countries. It is striking that we live with it and put up with it. I have been to many conferences where the “W” word has never been used, which is not right. Today, 1 billion women are suffering in India and Africa. What do we do? Really, we do nothing. We talk about it and we feel sorry for them. We say that the NGOs will do it but they cannot do everything. We need to look further than that, and to find means and ways of sorting out their lives.

I know that noble Lords will say that I am touting, but three years ago I published a book about how to change extreme poverty through women. It is about finding paid work for women. One of the most amazing things is that women are not in the economy of Africa or in the economy of India. Christine Lagarde spoke about how much difference it would make to Africa and India if the women were brought into the economy. If you go past the Indian subcontinent, the women are in the economy. It is quite amazing how well they have all done. Do noble Lords think that China would be where it is today without women working? It would not. Women are essential, not just to bear children—which is how they are seen—and look after men; they are essential people who work, provide and produce. We should focus on that. How can we help them to produce something or work at something and earn some money?

I have seen so many projects where, when a woman earns the smallest amount of money, she changes. Her family starts to respect her and she is empowered, although I am not fond of that awful word. She says to herself, “This is my money. I earned it”. Some women in a village who did bits of work that an NGO gave them and then sold that work told me, “It’s so wonderful not to give every penny to my husband. If my child wants something, I can buy it for him or her”. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, mentioned Gandhiji’s quote about looking at the poorest, most deprived face and the most miserable one. I can assure noble Lords that it would be a woman’s face because they are the most deprived.

Somebody thought that we were moving forward. We are not moving forward in the poorest parts of the world. We are moving backwards. The situation of women in India is worse today than it was when I was a young girl. It is worse than when I was in my middle years. It is definitely much worse in recent times. It is so shocking to me. I cannot speak for Africa in the same way because I am not so familiar with the decades, but I see the women working all the time. The men are sitting around in the shops chatting and the women are doing all the work in the fields. That is Africa. The women are carrying loads. The men do not carry loads. You see a man walking down the street and he is not carrying anything. You see a woman walking down the road and she is carrying more than you can imagine. If she has a child, the child is carrying. It is quite amazing how that situation has developed.

In India, it is extremely sad. The situation of women is far worse today than it was in earlier days. The whole society seems to think in terms of material things, which is fine because they have nothing. What is happening to women? We talk about women who are trafficked, but all women are, in some way or another, slaves. We are slaves to the family. Not us, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin. We are all right, but we are the only ones who are. Women are slaves to their families.

They are mistreated by other women and that is another thing that I should like to mention. Women are not good to each other. Two young men from the University of Durham have just spent a week with me. They told me how bitchy the girls are to each other. One said in a surprised way, “We don’t talk like that about each other. If we have something to say, we say it. But the girls bitch about each other all the time behind their backs”. That is happening in this country. The women say, “But we are not getting on boards”. Women have not learnt how to make the most of their skills. They still compete with each other instead of competing where the power lies, which is with the men. Anyway, that is not today’s agenda.

I should like to touch on something that upsets me a lot, and that is the role of religion. In Africa, Catholics have a very strong voice. What do they say to the women? They say that it is a sin to use contraception: “You must not use contraception because it is a sin”. A woman has 10 children and the man boasts about it, but most of the children do have not enough food or they die of some illness. Is that what should be happening? What are we saying to the Pope? We should be saying, “Open your eyes and look at the lives of the women and children, and then see whether there should be contraception”. The most important thing in a woman’s life at the moment is family planning. With it, she can bring up her children properly because she will have only the number of children that she can feed. This is extremely important.

We say that people will be left behind. People are being left behind now. We will never be able to raise everyone up to any kind of standard. However, if we focus on improving the lives of women, as another noble Lord said, we will find that women are the key. They are the only ones who can bring about change in our world.