Sexual Violence in Conflict (Select Committee Report)

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the chairman and the members of the committee on the breadth of this report. I also congratulate the Government, who have responded to the problem in such a positive way, especially since the conference called by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, that was attended by Angelina Jolie two years ago. What was remarkable about that conference was that the general public were allowed in—and it was mobbed. I have never experienced anything like it; to see great queues snaking along, waiting to go into a booth where a junior Minister was talking about something was quite unprecedented. It made me think that we ought to have something like that every year, to get the public in and involved in these issues. It was tremendous and I congratulate the noble Lord.

On a personal note, I was disappointed not to be a member of this committee. After 30 years working in the National Health Service as a doctor in sexual and reproductive health; as a parliamentarian working in international development for 20 years now; and as chair of the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health for many years I was, to put it mildly, a bit miffed. I was told by the then Chairman of Committees, Lord Sewel, that this was because I do not belong to a formal political group in this House. So there is the reason: rules is rules and one must obey. However, I am delighted to have this opportunity to make a few points of my own.

The committee’s report mentioned that it was looking forward to the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul last May. I attended that conference and noted that the commitments to action at the end stated that we must: prevent and end conflict; uphold norms that safeguard humanity; leave no one behind; change people’s lives; manage risks and crises differently; invest in humanity and in particular women and girls. They got there in the end. Investing in women and girls is so important, even though it was last on the list.

From the same conference we learned that, of the 125 million people in need of humanitarian assistance worldwide, over 75% are women and children. Globally, 35% of women have suffered from gender-based violence and this increases significantly during conflict. In my experience, it is difficult to collect figures. Whatever the policy and legal framework discussed in chapter 2 of the report, we ultimately rely on women reporting the violence in the first place and many are reluctant to do this, for cultural and family reasons. However, there is no doubt. I have listened in confidence to women in many places, including Rwanda, South Sudan, Colombia, Kosovo and the Middle East and heard of the horrific crimes committed, which the chairman told the House about. It is the prevention of these crimes and dealing with the consequences, as dealt with in chapter 3, which I want to dwell upon.

Rape in conflict situations is a first step in genocide—impregnate the enemy’s women with your seed and that will dilute the enemy’s genes. Way back in 1998-99, when I was first in the Commons, Tess Kingham, MP for Gloucester, and I argued this and were ridiculed. At that time it was thought a bit of a joke and we were going too far. Rape is not always straightforward sexual intercourse either. As we have heard from the chairman, rifle butts and broken bottles can be deployed and cause the most terrible injuries. The question of how soldiers, when ordered to rape captive women, actually manage to do it to order has always slightly puzzled me. I have heard claims from NGOs and other people who have worked in this field that soldiers in some groups are forced to take mood-enhancing drugs and also, more recently, Viagra, before going on to systematic rape of captive women. I would have hoped that the committee could have looked into this too. Maybe we can in the future, because it must surely be against some rule of war or other for this to be allowed.

As has been mentioned, refugee camps are terrifying places for women, often because toilet facilities are poor or shared, making women vulnerable to attack on their way there and back. In the camps in Jordan which I visited, I heard of child marriage getting younger and younger, often to total strangers, in the girls families’ efforts to protect their daughters from rape in the camps. Too early marriage also causes its own horrific injuries, so it is to be deplored. Women and girls are in desperate need of healthcare as a result of all these horrors. I was a little disappointed that the recommendations in chapter 4 of the report did not emphasise this more as it is a passion of mine.

Treatment for infections and injury, of course, combined with immediate access to post-coital contraception and abortion are of paramount importance. Paragraph 57 in the recommendations in chapter 5 is to be commended for its support for abortion after rape in conflict, which is a recognised human right. The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, went into that in great detail. I thank her for that. The committee also recognised that the Helms amendment by the United States Administration is contrary to international human rights law. This causes great confusion in the field because some NGOs are not allowed to provide abortion to victims because of the USA rulings. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said, funds are often pooled to provide this service, and therefore the service is prevented in some peculiar way because of the USA contribution. We really must look at this. Will the Minister please tell us what steps the Government are taking with the United States Administration to get them to remove this obstruction to simple humanity? Perhaps after the presidential elections things may change, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Hague, mentioned—we must keep our fingers crossed.

I commend the report for its recommendations on stigma attached to these crimes, in paragraph 63 onwards, not forgetting men and boys but also not forgetting the LGBTI groups in this, who have not been mentioned before. People with disabilities and those from different ethnic groups are also mentioned. There needs to be massive education of boys and girls in many communities. I suppose that education generally is ultimately the answer.

Recommendation 73 points out that the United Nations does not have responsibility for internally displaced people, of whom there are many at the moment, particularly in the Middle East. I ask the Minister when our Government will approach the United Nations on this problem.

Finally, and most importantly for me, I ask the Minister to confirm that funding for women and girls will continue as it is now, including for NGOs such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International and the United Nations Population Fund—funding which was so welcome at the family planning summit in 2014. I am afraid that the new Secretary of State has been making rather worrying noises about changing the method, and even the amount, of funding in this area. That, for me, is very worrying indeed, as it is for all of us working in this field. NGOs like these provide vital services for women who have been violated in conflict situations. The need for sexual and reproductive health services is increasing all the time worldwide. They have been shown to provide such benefits to women and the economies of the countries where they live. Therefore, it would be a tragedy if this brilliant initiative taken originally by the coalition Government were weakened in any way.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lady Nicholson for her expert chairmanship of the Select Committee and to members of the committee for their report and the opportunity we have to debate it tonight. In opening, my noble friend set out graphically the horrors experienced by those who are victims, but whom we also wish to assist to become survivors, of the appalling assaults upon them.

I am also delighted that my noble friends Lord Hague and Lady Helic have taken part in this debate, since it was they who put the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative on such very firm foundations, gaining international support which endures to this day. I will say more in a moment about the funding and stress the fact that this initiative will endure.

Sexual violence in conflict harms individuals and harms societies. Stigma and impunity prevent survivors from seeking justice and communities from achieving reconciliation. The Government agree with the Select Committee’s view that sexual violence in conflict,

“must not, under any circumstances, be overlooked or condoned … it must be eradicated”.

That is why ending sexual violence in conflict remains an important government priority. It is also a personal priority for me, as the Prime Minister’s special representative on this issue. I make it clear that when the Prime Minister spoke to me on the weekend of 16 and 17 July, she asked me to be her personal representative, as I had been for David Cameron, to take up the cudgels on ending violence against women and girls, and to ensure that there would be no hiatus in that work, including when a new Minister may be appointed full-time to DfID. I gladly gave that commitment.

Since the launch of the PSVI, the UK has committed over £30 million to support projects in Bosnia, Colombia, the DRC, Iraq, Kosovo, Nepal and many other countries. That has delivered real impact. Each department has a different approach to how long projects may have their allocation of funding. One always has to look at what the impact of that funding is; sometimes, one can extend it. Recently in the FCO, we made sure that one particular pot of money—if I can call it that rather broadly—can now provide funding for two years instead of one. We have to be agile in the way that we approach funding.

Funding is not just from the FCO and the different streams there. It also comes from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, where significant funding is now available for PSVI and for eradicating violence against women and girls. Noble Lords concentrated on DfID, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for DfID has made it clear today that she will keep the 0.7% funding which we have already committed to in our manifesto and that she expects all the funding at DfID to be spent. It will be spent well, which is what she is trying to present to the world. We will make sure that the spending DfID commits to, as with that from the FCO and other departments, will go to deliver real results.

I expect the multilateral aid review to be published relatively soon. Although, as one knows with language here, that means I cannot give the exact date, it will give further information about funding. Funding is not only the right thing to do with regard to PSVI, it is the right thing because it provides greater stability. That has been the message from noble Lords today, which is why I hope that any Government would want to continue that funding. It is the impact it has on the stability of governance that is so striking.

In the DRC we will continue to fund counselling for survivors and training for faith leaders. We have already trained over 17,000 military and police personnel on sexual violence issues, including 10,000 troops from the African Union Mission to Somalia and almost 6,000 members of the Peshmerga. We plan to continue to fund that work.

Our team of PSVI experts has been referred to quite a lot this evening, which I am pleased to hear. It has been deployed overseas more than 80 times in places as diverse as the Syrian border, Iraq, the DRC, Libya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mali and Kosovo. The experts have provided and will continue to provide vital training to human rights activists, healthcare professionals, members of the judiciary and the military. The training covers how to document and prosecute crimes of sexual violence, how to support survivors and how to protect civilians from human rights violations. I assure my noble friend Lady Helic and others that we will continue our support for the TOE and develop its use further.

We have launched the first ever international protocol on the documentation and investigation of sexual violence in conflict, which has become the benchmark for best practice in this field. It is the key to ending impunity and ensuring greater accountability. Its accessibility is being expanded now through new translations: it is available in 10 languages including Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, Kurdish, Serbian and Swahili. We are now revising the protocol to make sure that we have new guidance on male and child survivors and to make it easier to use. I assure my noble friend Lord Black and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that we look very carefully at the needs of men and boys as well as those of women and girls. They are right to point out that those in the LGBTI community, and those who are not but who are assaulted because they are men and boys, sometimes have great difficulty reporting it because of the criminalisation of male sexual activity. That is something that we very much take to heart. The revision process for the protocol is due to be completed by early next year.

Initiatives, projects and protocols are all very well, but the impact of our work can be understood only when, as so many noble Lords have described today, one meets those who have survived sexual violence and hears from them directly how help to them can change their lives. Since my appointment as the Prime Minister’s special representative, I have travelled to many parts of the world afflicted by sexual violence. I have met survivors whose courage is shaming and knows no bounds. In Nigeria I met members of the Bring Back Our Girls group, campaigning for the return of the 276 Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, encouraged us in this House at Question Time, we must never forget them and never give up. Even if those girls are released or escaped, their suffering will not end there, as often they are treated with suspicion. The stigma that they face robs them of the support that they need and steals away their hope for the future. We must do our best to put that right, and through our funding in Nigeria we do just that. In Bosnia and Herzegovina I met women who, 20 years after the abuses took place, still have not been able to talk about them to their husbands, families or friends, yet I found they were prepared to share their stories with me, a complete stranger. It showed me how important it was for their experiences to be heard and their suffering recognised.

Reference has been made on several occasions today to Colombia. It is very much in our minds because of the peace agreement with FARC that has been rejected in a referendum. I know we all wish that country well and hope that peace may yet be formally found but that in the mean time it may be kept by FARC, the Government and paramilitaries.

I assure the House that our embassy in Bogota is helping to amplify the voice of survivors and to help them in their communities across every region of Colombia, because noble Lords are right to point out that it is not merely a matter of the FARC; paramilitaries also carry out violent attacks. Our embassy there is working to address the problem of how the media stereotype the victims of sexual violence. We will continue our support for that work in Colombia, and I undertake to carry forward the suggestion that when President Santos is in the UK in November, he may be able to find time in his very heavy schedule to make contact with NGOs. If not, I undertake to see what we can do on that in Colombia itself. I know that he takes to heart human rights: I have heard him say that in front of me in this House.

In the DRC, to which many noble Lords referred, I met a courageous young woman who told me she had been raped and tortured. When she looked to her family for support, they shunned her because of the stigma of rape. Despite the terrible trauma she had suffered, it was with the support of her local church and other faiths that this young woman went on to become a teacher. I am proud of the support we are able to give to organisations which maximise the co-operation of faith groups—organisations such as Tearfund. I am also grateful to those who provide healthcare, organisations such as HEAL Africa in Goma. More recently, I met Dr Mukwege, and praised him for his work. They not only literally rebuild communities, they rebuild victims’ bodies, but we also need to rebuild their minds because of the trauma they face.

My noble friend Lady Verma and the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, were right to remind us how important it is that we work together to ensure the safety of those who are IDPs or in refugee camps. We do that through some of the programmes we fund which are delivered by both UN agencies and NGOs. I visited one such project on the outskirts of Irbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Recently, when I was in Geneva, I was able to discuss the issue of safety of refugees when I met the High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.

Stories of communities turning their backs on survivors are sadly not at all uncommon. The work we can do is vital to remove that stigma, because stigma not only prolongs survivors’ suffering, it can delay reconciliation and threaten stability in an already fragile community. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and my noble friend Lord Black referred to the importance of looking at the causes of stigma, and considering the decriminalisation of same-sex relations. That is essential worldwide, including in the Commonwealth. I assure the noble Lords that I have been discussing this during the whole of the Summer Recess, when I have been travelling overseas but also here in London, with representatives of countries which still criminalise these activities. We must work towards decriminalisation.

I have been trying to set out why stigma remains one of the greatest barriers that we need to face and why my priority now is to address stigma. I am determined to change the harmful attitudes, the cultural and social norms, which cause stigma—to go to the root cause, as noble Lords have asked. I continue to take our message on stigma to countries affected by sexual violence. Very shortly, I hope to visit Burma and Sri Lanka on these matters.

Understanding the challenges in different countries is the first step. We are indeed continuing to hold workshops in Colombia, the DRC, Iraq, Kosovo and Nepal, and planning others in Somalia and Nigeria. We know that the best way to achieve our goals is by involving as many local groups and organisations as possible, so these workshops will bring together survivors, community leaders, media representatives, legal experts, Governments and others. With the findings of these workshops, together with information shared by civil society and our international partners, we will then draw up an action plan.

An expert-led conference at Wilton Park in late November will take this work forward. The conference will also help to ensure that UK support, such as the PSVI team of experts and project funding, is better targeted and uses our network of 18 PSVI champion countries more effectively. It is essential that we work together and work for the future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and one or two others raised the issue of healthcare, and particularly the matter of abortion. Perhaps I can give a little information about DfID policy on this. Due to the time I shall try to be brief. DfID policy is that in countries where abortion is permitted, we can indeed support programmes that make safe abortion more accessible. We can do that, and we do. We can also help make the consequences of unsafe abortion more widely understood and can consider supporting processes of legal and policy reform. I would be very happy to discuss that matter further in more detail because, obviously, it depends on countries and needs.

[Baroness Tonge]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Before she leaves the subject of abortion could she please address the problem of the USA and the Helms amendment and say whether the Government will put any pressure on perhaps the new Administration there to change this?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am not going to get drawn into who might win. I will make a decision once we know what the result is and we see what their priorities are. I can say that as a result of the discussions on the sustainable development goals and the inclusion of a goal with regard to women and their safety, it is important around the world that women’s health is put very much at the front of any policy-making with regard to assisting the survivors of violence. Indeed, women’s health is vital anyway. I very much appreciate the words of my noble friend Lord Hague about the empowerment of women. That goes to the heart of it. He got it absolutely right.

I was asked in particular about the Istanbul convention by my noble friend Lady Helic, and I am thinking of the international work that we do. I am raising that matter later this week with the Home Office when I attend the cross-departmental group on violence against women and girls. I understand that there are one or two residual issues on which we need legislation, so I shall be pressing hard and I shall use her voice to help me to do that.

As noble Lords have said tonight, the whole point is that those who survive need to feel that they are seeing justice, however they define that. Survivors define it in so many different ways. They need to know that the perpetrators will be held to account. They need to know that justice has a long memory and a long arm and that one day it will come knocking on their door. I give an undertaking now that not only am I working on that but the Foreign Secretary has made it crystal clear at the United Nations General Assembly that he is determined to do that too. We also need to ensure that, when tackling the perpetrators, we do not exclude members of peacekeeping forces, because they must not exercise sexual exploitation and abuse either. The current UNSG has made it clear that there is zero tolerance. I have not yet managed to speak to Antonio Guterres, who was named as the successor last Friday. He takes over in January. Certainly from his previous utterings, I would expect him to have the same view.

Reference has been made to the training of security personnel and the importance of the role of women in peacekeeping. When we responded to the report we made it clear that in,

“arranging all future UK-hosted peace-building events, we will identify women involved in the conflict and shine a torch on them to make sure their voices are heard. We will promote the active participation of women in such discussions through political and/or financial support”.

We will continue to do that. We will maintain that commitment.

I conclude by again thanking members of the committee for their report, and all those who contributed to the debate. In answer to many points made, this is not just me and not just the Foreign Office—it is a matter of working across all departments in government. We face tremendous challenges, but they are the challenges that need to be faced. We cannot do it alone; we need to do it together, internationally, and this Government must maintain the lead set by my noble friends. We embrace challenging ambitions—but, my goodness, we owe it to the victims and survivors to carry them through. My father always used to say, “There’s no such word as ‘can’t’—it’s ‘won’t’”. I won’t say “won’t”; I will say “I will”.