Sexual Violence in Conflict (Select Committee Report)

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to your Lordships’ House for allowing me to make a short contribution. I failed miserably to put my name down in time for this important debate, so I shall put just two or three succinct points to my noble friend the Minister. However, I want to start by thanking the committee, so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, for its work in gathering at times harrowing evidence and witness statements for your Lordships’ House. More importantly still, the report highlights the work that needs to be done.

I want also to put on record my gratitude to the Minister, who has demonstrated her personal commitment, as well as that of the Government, to ensuring that this crucial area is seen not as an “add-on”, as my noble friend Lord Hague put it, but as a cross-government initiative to make sure that all departments understand and sign up to the need to tackle this scourge of impunity, as my noble friend Lady Helic said, on behalf of innocent victims. When I was a Minister at the Department for International Development, I spoke to many victims. I can say categorically that peace will come only when we put victims—those people who understand what is needed—at the heart of decision-making.

I want to ask the Minister two questions. First, how are the Government monitoring the safety and security of women and girls, boys and men, in camps that we are helping to support through government funding? It is fine to have canvas tents and food, but for the security of those using washrooms and accessing services is there adequate lighting and proper vetting? Are these things in place to protect people in such camps? In many camps, those people who are supposed to be protecting are actually the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

Secondly, and as rightly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, will the Minister reassure us that there will be no reduction in support for programmes which help women and girls in conflict areas access proper legal, medical and psychological support? Can she assure the House that this support will not be sacrificed, with the focus shifted away from humanitarian and development aid, in the context that it has been under the last Government and currently this one before recent changes, or will it suddenly be tied up with just aid for trade? If we are going to make economies stronger, I ask my noble friend the Minister to make sure that they are not sacrificed because of victims who have no voices in these conflicts.