Women, Peace and Security Bill [HL]

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as a former chair of the APPG on Women, Peace and Security long ago, it gives me great pleasure to thank my noble friend Lady Hodgson for her outstanding work. I agree that the Bill is a necessity at this time.

The rape and torture of women in wars and conflicts have been a feature of conquest throughout human history, past and present. Apparently we are transitioning through the civilised period of human history. Despite the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907 requiring family honour to be respected in wars by occupying powers, men in battle have equated women with disposable commodities. It is also worth noting the recent history of American soldiers who stand accused of raping Iraqi men in Abu Ghraib—so men too have been raped and tortured during wars.

For context, I was trawling the internet on this matter to gain a better understanding of the millions of women who have been used as a weapon of war. Even I, who lived through the war of independence in Bangladesh and so was fully conscious of the depravity of war, was ill equipped mentally to read the astounding numbers of women who have been brutalised, raped and tortured in conflicts in my century.

Japan stands accused of the mass raping of between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women in the city of Nanking, China, during 1937-38. During 1944-45 there was the mass rape of 100,000 German women or more by Soviet soldiers in Berlin. I have raised in this House on many occasions the horror of what happened in Bangladesh in 1971, when an estimated 300,000 women were raped and tortured. Many died in rape camps.

An estimated 500,000 women were raped in Rwanda during 1994. It is stated that sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group. Muslim women and girls as young as 12 were subject to widespread routine gang rape, torture and sexual enslavement by Bosnian Serb soldiers in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1992. Many women disappeared and might have been murdered.

We witnessed before our eyes the forced expulsion by the Burmese military of up to 1 million Rohingya families fleeing Bangladesh as the West failed to intervene and exert sufficient pressure on the Burmese army. I do not have the exact numbers but at least 70,000 women gave birth in those camps, and I wonder how many of those babies were born of rape.

Some of the numbers that I have cited may be a significant underestimate. There are not enough hours available in the Chamber to depict the atrocities committed on Burmese women. Shockingly, as published in various reputable research papers, those who stand accused have vociferously challenged and denied these facts. If we are to believe women as witnesses and survivors, then there may be even more than we are able to report who have died and disappeared.

Countless UN resolutions have permeated our international talking shops while the lives of women, from Afghanistan to Africa to Ukraine, continue to bear the brunt of wars and conflicts past and present. Historically too, international communities and institutions with the laudable aim of liberating women, including our own Government, have again and again failed to protect women, to prevent them coming to harm and to engage them in peacebuilding and post-conflict settlement.

Therefore I stand with the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and her Private Member’s Bill, which would require the UK Secretary of State to have regard to the UK national action plan on women, peace and security when formulating and implementing government policy. As has been mentioned, the plan has been adopted to meet our commitment under UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The UK is on its fourth NAP, based on the agenda of changes in the role of women in conflict prevention, women’s participation in peacebuilding, the protection of women and girls after conflict, relief and addressing women’s needs during repatriation, resettlement and integration.

It pains me to see the global plight of women. It is a salutary reminder of how far we have yet to climb and how easily we can descend into indecency and human degradation, even in our modern civilised century. The Bill would give women hope and highlight the importance of women’s integral role in peace and security efforts. It seeks women’s involvement as a core part of UK policy. Human catastrophe on this level leaves one breathless contemplating the upcoming challenges that our world faces.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, do the UK Government have a particular funding mechanism and target to reach women and girls in conflict and those designated as fragile states, including those that I have mentioned? If so, what are they? Secondly, what leadership can the UK Government provide to initiate dialogue for reparation and apologies for the rape and torture of women in countries such as Bangladesh, about which I have asked Ministers on many occasions? Thirdly, will he assure the House that the forthcoming international conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict on 29 November consider outstanding reparation and apologies for war crimes of the past?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I will give that commitment now, which will cause a flurry of activity if it is not the case. I have already mentioned Colombia specifically. I want to use what has worked well in Colombia as a reflection of what we can do, not just further in Latin America but across the world. I come back to my earlier point: if there are specific elements that the noble Baroness feels we can introduce, even at this point I am quite happy to ensure those are considered as part of the agenda.

I end by thanking all noble Lords for their contributions. This has been a wide-ranging debate. There are some specific questions I have not had time to respond to in my concluding remarks but—

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

I am sorry to interrupt but will the Minister undertake to write to me on the question of apologies and reparations?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I think I made that point. I referred to the Global Survivor Fund, which is a general fund. Those kinds of funds help the victims of such abhorrent acts in the Rohingya camps, so funding is certainly available. I will of course write specifically to the noble Baroness, as I have already said.

Once again, I thank my noble friend Lady Hodgson for introducing this Bill. I assure her that I have asked my officials to work closely with her to ascertain how the Government might work positively and constructively to deliver its aims, and I will make personal efforts on this issue. I assure all noble Lords that I look forward to continuing to work with them to champion women’s human rights and the rights of women defenders, peacebuilders, survivors and political leaders around the world. Simply put, it is the right thing to do.