Sexual Violence in Conflict (Select Committee Report)

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as in the Register of Lords’ Interests. As it is late, I shall take just one or two parts of the committee’s report, as my colleagues who have spoken before me quite rightly mentioned them.

First, I thank the House for having agreed to have a Select Committee into sexual violence in conflict. Although the issues and what we listened to from witnesses and saw in videos and other means were difficult, I enjoyed being on the committee with all my colleagues and clerks, and the great advice we received from Professor Chinkin and her colleagues at the LSE.

I want to talk about the Institute for Women, Peace and Security at Georgetown and the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the LSE. The reason why those two institutions are so important, along with the work and the report of the committee, is that it is right to have women at every peace table on these issues. At present, we are told that no women are trained and that they cannot find local women. We can always find them. At Georgetown and the LSE women come to speak to tell us and the students who are learning to be peacekeepers what it is like. The women are there. We in this Chamber could give lists of them.

I have one big ask for the Minister—I know she has been asked for a number of things from others, whom I agree with—that the Government will not agree to any peacekeeping talks without local women and other women being at the peace table. We know in Angola and other places that the first thing peacekeepers did was forgave the men, and there were no proper dealings on the peace. What happens? The peace is broken. Statistics show that when the women are at the peace table, as in Northern Ireland or Chile, peace has been kept and things have continued.

Why do we need women at the peace table? First, it is about the long-term medical support for men, women and children. Then it is about education—and not just basic education. To keep peace, we have to have higher education. Part of the peacekeeping has to reach outside higher education, if it is not possible to have universities opened. If we do not educate boys and girls we will have a period of terrorism because of greed and because people do not know what to do. Also it is about rebuilding communities. We have to get investment from outside as we were able to do with the Good Friday peace agreement, which I hope will be able to be continued, and with other peacekeeping agreements. That is why women ask for this. Women do not wish their boys and girls to be terrorists any longer—and that is what happens. If we do not have proper peacekeeping arrangements around the table, in writing, we are not going to get the peace. At the moment, we have more displaced people than at any other time in the world, and there are more so-called peace agreements being made—but they are not really being made. I am not attacking anybody, but I refer to the whole question of Syria. It is just disgraceful that we cannot bring the two sides together. We know that if the right people were there, that could happen. It is important that we have women at the peace table.

I hope that we can get an undertaking tonight from the Minister, who gave an undertaking in her evidence, that the Government will not participate in and will challenge any peace-table arrangements that do not have women. As we saw happen around Bosnia—and we had evidence—the peacekeeping and the peace table was done too quickly. There was not enough time to live with those who have to live with what is made up. People are people, and they have to live with whatever agreements are made about them, which is why we have to have women there—both from outside and local women. It is important.

The whole question of mass rape applies not only to women but to boys and men. I hope very much that DfID will continue with its investment over the next X years to look at why this happens and what it does to men and boys. We heard evidence that it is bad enough for us as women, but for men and boys it has a terrible effect. I hope that the money in DfID that has been pledged will continue to be there, and we have to watch that that happens, and that the DfID programmes, working with the Ministry of Defence, continue and are joined up with the Foreign Office. Can the Minister tell us tonight that they will continue? We have been reading and hearing from civil servants that there could be major changes with the DfID budget, and we do not want to lose that budget. The work that we are asking them to do can be measured—we know that nothing is without measurement—but time has to be given for measurements. Can the Minister speak to those departments, to help them to understand that this is vital to world peace, that we are the leaders in this field and that the Government will continue with this? If not, it will be very difficult. We have buy-in across the political divide on this issue, which is why we can continue with this work. We have to be the world leader. We have started to be the world leader. The Minister is now leading this on our behalf. We have to take other countries with us. I hope that Australia might come forward. Canada is another country that could. It is really important that we bring other countries to the table besides the United States.