International Widows Day

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, on securing this important debate and on all his work in establishing International Widows Day, drawing attention to it and addressing the issues faced by widowed women. He set out very clearly so many of the problems that widowed women are still facing.

The United Nations reports that armed conflicts, the Covid-19 pandemic and displacement and migration have left many more women newly widowed in recent years. I will focus my remarks on the plight of Afghan women. Today, the situation of women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan has reverted to what it was pre-2002, when the Taliban previously controlled the country. Any progress on women’s rights in the intervening 20 years has been rolled back.

We recall that restoring rights for women was one of the cornerstones of the United Kingdom’s invasion of Afghanistan. Now, over two decades later, girls in Afghanistan have been banned from secondary school and women from tertiary education. Women and girls have been banned from entering amusement parks, public baths, gyms and sports clubs. Women have been banned from working for NGOs. Since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August 2021, women have been excluded from public office and the judiciary. Today, Afghanistan’s women and girls are required to adhere to a very strict dress code and are not permitted to travel more than 75 kilometres without a mahram. They are compelled to stay at home. They are invisible.

Over 2.5 million women in Afghanistan have been widowed by decades of conflict and war. They face political and economic insecurity, educational inequality, sexual violence and poor health. That is especially pervasive among Afghan women and children, who were left displaced, illiterate and facing severe post-traumatic stress disorder from living in a war zone for so long. Most of these women were forced by their circumstances to marry young and have children, only to become the sole breadwinner of the family after their husband’s death. Infant mortality is extraordinarily high in Afghanistan—it is the highest in the world—particularly in rural areas, where only 3% of pregnant women are attended in their deliveries by a skilled professional.

Save the Children gives the example of a 26-year-old widow with four children who has no male guardian to escort her when she leaves home. Therefore, she now finds it very difficult to access humanitarian aid. Save the Children reports that it has been unable to restart the majority of food security and livelihood projects which provide life-saving assistance to women like this one and her children.

The ban on female NGO staff in Afghanistan has been disastrous as the country faces a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with an economic crisis, severe drought, high food prices and extreme poverty. Households supported by women have much lower incomes than families supported by men, and a staggering 96% of female-headed households are not eating enough food due to these restrictions. Women and children are now malnourished and, in many cases, starving. They are being sentenced, as one Afghan woman put it, to “death in slow motion”. This death sentence for Afghan women and girls can be lifted only by major and wide-ranging policy changes by the Taliban.

What efforts are we making together with the international community to continue to provide essential support to Afghan women, to prioritise women’s and girls’ rights in all engagements with the de facto authorities, and to demand the immediate reversal of those edicts and policies that abuse women’s and girls’ rights? Are we taking proactive measures to support Afghan women to engage in decision-making processes in Afghanistan about Afghanistan?

We know that, when equipped with vocational and economic tools, women can change their lives and those of their children, often regardless of their circumstances. We have heard some very good examples today, and historically around the world there have been some very good examples of women being able to do that if they are given the support and the right tools.

These women have, in effect, been abandoned by the West. I am in touch with quite a few charities that support widowed women and their children. They are small charities run by other Afghan women, mainly from this country, who are trying to make a difference. However, such small charities are only the tip of the iceberg, so I ask the Minister what efforts we are making to alleviate this suffering.