Global Gender Equality

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord; I think that I speak for all noble Lords when I express my appreciation of his support. I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and congratulate the Minister on securing time for it in the House.

The Women Deliver conference and this debate are forums where we can focus on gender equality and the health, rights and well-being of women and girls in the 21st century. This year, 40 years since the adoption of CEDAW, they give us the opportunity not only to celebrate some successes but to renew our commitment to women’s rights ahead of the UK’s voluntary national review of the SDGs next month. Indeed, it is important that we ensure continued focus. As we have heard, we are seeing a shrinking of space for civil society across the world and the global withdrawal of access to abortions and other reproductive health services from the US, with the targeting of women’s human rights defenders prevalent in many countries. We even see this rollback at the UN. As my noble friend the Minister told us, UNSCR 2467 on conflict-related sexual violence, passed in April, was not able to hold on to the language on sexual health and reproductive rights of the Beijing Declaration and platform for action.

Next year is a very important year: it is the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action and the fifth anniversary of the SDGs. The US will chair the G7 summit and Saudi Arabia is due to chair the G20. I am concerned that there will be further attempts to undermine global progress. The UK needs to stand firm for the hard-won victories on global gender equality and sexual and reproductive health rights.

Before I go further, I should draw attention to my various roles in development and women’s interest organisations as listed in the register of interests. In particular, I co-chair the APPG on Women, Peace and Security and I am a member of the steering board for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative.

We could discuss so many issues this afternoon but I wish to focus on a few that I feel incredibly strongly about. As we have heard, it is in conflict countries that women suffer most, and their rights roll back. Since the adoption of the women, peace and security agenda through UNSCR 1325 in 2000, only 27% of peace agreements have referenced women. Between 1992 and 2011, women made up only 9% of negotiators in peace processes and 4% of signatories; that fell to 3% between 2008 and 2012. Yet we know that where women are included in peace processes, there is a 20% increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least two years and a 35% increase in the probability of it lasting at least 15 years. We also know that unless women are included at the table, there will be peace and security in a country for only half the population and women will remain at risk.

The UK “holds the pen” at the UN on women, peace and security. However—forgive me, for I know that I have asked this question before—nearly 19 years after the adoption of Resolution 1325, why are Syrian women not allowed at the peace table? We should not have to justify why women should be included in peace processes; we should ask the men to justify why they are not. As we look at the tentative peace processes in Yemen and Afghanistan, where are the women? I understand that the US, which is convening the talks with the Taliban, has a law to include women in peace processes, but it seems that it is being totally ignored. How can we in the UK exert global influence to make sure that more countries adhere to what they have signed up to?

The Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, launched by William Hague and Angelina Jolie in 2012, brought this issue to global attention. As we have heard, it affects men as well as women, although the majority of victims are women. The initiative was always going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and the situation was and continues to be of such magnitude that it needs sustained and long-term effort. Can the Minister update us on the plans for the PSVI international conference that the UK will host this November, five years on from the 2014 global summit? We need to ensure that the UK and indeed the world does not lose focus on this issue and to keep the pressure up. One only has to look at the conflicts raging today—the high levels of sexual violence committed by Daesh against the Yazidis or the stories coming out of the Rohingya camp at Cox’s Bazar—to see how very relevant the initiative is.

I spoke in greater detail about the crisis involving adolescent girls in my Question for Short Debate earlier this year. UNESCO statistics tell us that girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school if they live in conflict-affected countries and that adolescent girls are a staggering 90% more likely to miss school. It is not unexpected that access to education is curtailed during conflict, but I put it to the House that the needs of adolescent girls are falling through the gaps of the global humanitarian response. It is clear that in conflict and crisis-affected settings, adolescent girls are at increased risk of a number of horrors which result in a greater need for sexual and reproductive health services due to unwanted pregnancies, STIs and unsafe abortions. Some 507 girls and women die every day in humanitarian contexts due to childbirth or pregnancy-related complications. The World Health Organization states that the risk of pregnancy-related death for adolescent girls is twice as high for those aged 15-19 and five times as high for those age 10-14 compared with a woman in her twenties.

Access to services and information is extremely challenging in humanitarian settings and is often inadequate and poor. Limits to girls’ mobility are often intensified and access is dependent on adults accompanying them to any safe space or health clinic where services may be provided. Twenty-six per cent of the adolescent girls interviewed by Plan International for its research reported having considered suicide at least once in the past 12 months. What was the outcome of the conference with reference to this specific sector of need? Can the Minister update us on how DfID is working across outward-facing departments such as the FCO, the DIT and the MoD regarding joint country plans? How many of them are gender-proofed for these issues?

Finally, as we have heard, it will be very difficult to empower women without them having power over their own bodies and the ability to control the number of children they have. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, for her work in this area. It is estimated that each year worldwide, more than 200 million women want to avoid pregnancy but have no access to modern contraception and that 25 million unsafe abortions take place. The rollback on this from the US and others has to be resisted at all costs. It is an attack on women across the world. I was glad to hear from my noble friend the Minister that the UK will continue to support the work. We need to stand strong on this.

I realise that there are many subjects, such as the importance of girls’ education, that I have not touched upon. There is much in the work of the UK that we should be enormously proud of, such as the Girls’ Education Challenge, but so much more still needs to be done. Perhaps I may ask the Minister how much of our total aid goes to women’s NGOs or women’s organisations based in developing countries. It is often these smaller organisations working on the ground which can make a big difference. Can we make sure that we are working more on prevention rather than cure, and thus truly remain a leader in this field as we push towards the SDGs?