Ethiopia Debate
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Baroness Helic
Main Page: Baroness Helic (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Helic's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the issue of population growth must be addressed, not just in the region we are currently talking about but across the world. We believe that prioritising girls’ education for 12 years is part and parcel of finding that long-term resolution. We are working with all agencies to find a resolution and the African Union, as well as the UN, has an important role to play.
Baroness Helic (Con) [V]
My Lords, yesterday in the other place the Minister for Africa stated:
“a high level of sexual violence is being directed at children”—[Official Report, Commons, 14/6/21; col. 41.]
in Tigray. This comes on top of the report about barbaric gender-based violence unleashed against the Tigrayan population as a whole. Can my noble friend tell the House, eight months later, how many of the UK team of experts set up to collect evidence of sexual violence, in precisely these kinds of situations, have been deployed to Ethiopia or to neighbouring countries to ensure that evidence is collected and perpetrators are eventually brought to account?