International Human Rights Day

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, for her work as an officer of the APPG, and for chairing that meeting. I was slightly late for it, but I was there for most of it, and I heard those testimonies. Of course I would support that call. I think it important for us to recognise the extraordinarily brave and courageous work of people like those who were there on that day, such as the human rights defenders from Peru from whom we heard very recently, and the representatives of the Wiwa people of Colombia, whom I mentioned. All over the world, human rights defenders are putting their lives, their safety and their freedom at risk to defend their lands and their rights against rapacious companies that are exploiting them because no one will protect them except themselves. I thank the hon. Lady for her support, and for all the work that she is doing. With President Gustavo Petro, we have renewed hope in Colombia, but sadly the attacks continue. Given that the UK is the penholder for Colombia at the United Nations, I should be grateful if the Minister reaffirmed our commitment to what the Colombians call paz total, or total peace.

As I have said, indigenous peoples continue to be disproportionately targeted, accounting for 49% of total murders. The UK and like-minded countries must help to support and protect human rights defenders. I understand that, to this end, the “UK Support for Human Rights Defenders” guidance, published in 2019, is being reviewed, and I should be interested to know whether the Minister has an update on when we can expect that review to be published. Given the crucial role that human rights defenders play in fostering peace, justice and inclusive development, I ask the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to consider elevating the guidance to a more comprehensive strategy, with benchmarks for officials and posts, which could then be adapted to specific country situations.

I cannot speak about the importance of the universal declaration without highlighting another of its central provisions: equality. Article 2 states:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

I believe that all parliamentarians are horrified by the treatment of women and girls in some parts of the world, particularly Afghanistan.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on an excellent speech, and on securing a debate on such an important day. He rightly mentions Afghanistan and the issues around the discrimination of women and girls in that great country. Should the UK consider joining the 30, I think, countries that are involved in an action at the International Court of Justice, because of their concerns about breaches of the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women?

[Fabian Hamilton]

Yes, and I would be interested to hear from our Minister whether we should join that action, because in some way or another, we really need to draw the world’s attention more clearly, and in a more focused way, to the shocking, appalling and totally unjustifiable treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan—and, indeed, other parts of the world. Until the sexes in this world are equal, we will not have the peace, justice and development that all humanity deserves.

Under this Government, we rightly have a relentless focus on tackling violence against women and girls in our country, but that focus should extend across the world, as I have said. It is simply incomprehensible—I stress this again—that in the 21st century, the Taliban can completely silence Afghan women and girls, almost erasing their very existence and barring them from education and public life. Extremely courageous women who protest against these violations face the most terrifying consequences, including enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture.

Just today, I heard an example of how this works on the ground in Afghanistan. I was told by somebody who knows the country well, and who is not an Afghan, that he recently spoke to Afghan doctors and midwives about the problems that many Afghan women experience when giving birth, especially in remote rural areas. Birth complications can lead to all sorts of other horrors, including the death of babies at birth. Under a special exception, the Taliban have allowed women to work as doctors and midwives, thank goodness, but a problem arises if a female midwife or doctor is stopped by, as he put it, a “bearded man” while she walks to work from where she lives. She will be stopped and questioned, and sometimes returned home. As women and girls can no longer get the training or education necessary to become gynaecologists, obstetricians, specialists, doctors, clinicians or midwives, there is a time-bomb ticking in this field of work, among others, in Afghanistan. It is extremely disturbing.

Our APPG is worried about democratic back-sliding globally, and the consequent erosion of political and civil rights, such as freedom of expression, assembly and association. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index, less than 8% of the world’s population lived in a full, proper democracy in 2023. Almost 40% lived under authoritarian rule—a share that has been creeping up in recent years. I do not need to remind hon. Members that this is happening, because we are all aware of it. Every single day, we hear stories of Parliaments and parliamentary democracy under attack.

Electoral autocracies are becoming more prevalent; sham elections are held, in a largely unsuccessful attempt to provide a veneer of political legitimacy. I will not name countries, but we all know who they are. The increase in violent conflict, as seen in Russia and the middle east, has stifled progress towards more meaningful political participation. It would be helpful to know more about how our Government will continue to promote and support democracy across the world and, closer to home, whether the defending democracy taskforce still has a role to play in protecting the UK’s democratic integrity from threats of foreign interference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important point and for the work that he is doing to represent his constituents, such as, for example, going to Downing Street with a petition. Interestingly, the other Member who is very strong on Kashmir is my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East who, like other Members here, regularly brings groups of constituents to the House. I know that the cross-party work that is done to promote human rights and to ensure that we observe their importance in Kashmir is crucial. That situation is monitored by the FCDO, and I would be very happy to write to him in more detail about the exact way in which that is done, bearing in mind, of course, that India and Pakistan play a crucial role in maintaining the peace.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for her kind words earlier. We know that human rights defenders have been detained without trial in many places—Khurram Parvez is just one example. The same is true of politicians and political activists, such as Yasin Malik, whose condition we are very concerned about. It would not be appropriate if, today of all days, we fail to mention the situation in the middle east, particularly given what is going on in Syria, Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. I hope the Minister will be able to respond to those points in her closing remarks.

[Catherine West]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning Yasin Malik, whose situation the FCDO is actively monitoring. I know that she is aware of that, because she is a regular correspondent with the Foreign Office and a very active member of the all-party group on human rights.

On Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we are, of course, monitoring the humanitarian response there. On Syria, we all knew how terrible the situation was, but to see the unspeakable conditions in those prisons, to see the newspaper pictures of those nooses covered in human blood, and to understand that people, including women and children, have been buried six feet under in cells has been truly devastating. We do not know what the future holds for Syria, but it is a very fragile situation. What we do know is that this House, on Human Rights Day, has emphasised the importance of human rights being at the heart of the middle east on several different fronts. As these different situations develop, human rights must play a key role in any peace process and in how Syria is governed in the future.

I will shorten my speech a little, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I know that people are keen to get on to human rights and IPU events this evening. We want to maximise the impact of all the tools at our disposal, and our approach sees the agenda in five themes, which I will quickly outline. The first is on defending civic space and fundamental freedoms. Today, a third of the world’s population live in countries with a closed civic space, which is clearly unacceptable. We will defend those spaces by changing our fundamental relationship to enable grassroots actors in partner countries to advocate for people’s rights. We will protect media freedom, building on the call from Commonwealth leaders last month to implement the Commonwealth media principles across our diverse family of nations, to which I refer the hon. Member for Lagan Valley.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East set out so clearly, the Government must continue to promote and support democracy in this world, and we are doing so through the Defending Democracy Taskforce. The taskforce is an enduring function of Government, which seeks to secure the democratic integrity of the UK from the full range of threats, including foreign interference. It comprises Ministers, operational leaders and senior officials, and it brings together His Majesty’s Government’s work on defending democracy to ensure we have a whole-of-Government response to the threats we face. The taskforce is reviewing the UK’s response to transnational repression, which was eloquently laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East. With his permission, I will write to him and all members of his APPG once the review is finished to give him a sense of where we are going on this important work, and so it can marry up with his earlier request that we look in an organised and systematic way at how we organise our work on human rights not just across the Foreign Office, but across Government. We must have a robust and joined-up approach across Government and law enforcement, not only on the human rights agenda, but specifically on transnational repression.

My hon. Friend was right to highlight his concerns about the killing of human rights defenders. They do inspiring work, often putting themselves in harm’s way. We heard from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire about human rights defenders and peacebuilders who put their lives at risk to speak out. I confirm that our human rights defender guidance is being reviewed, and we expect it to be finalised and published in the new year. We will certainly take account of the wise recommendations from the debate about what a review should cover and of the examples used. Meanwhile, we continue to work with partners to address the shocking level of reprisals against human rights defenders, including women.

Our second theme focuses on upholding the rule of law. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East mentioned critical right-to-life violations, such as the misuse of the death penalty and the use of excessive force against unarmed protesters. We need to promote and demonstrate respect for the rule of law in addressing those and many other issues. We have levers within the multilateral system to promote and defend human rights, including at the United Nations and through regional bodies, such as the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. My hon. Friend made particular mention of attacks against human rights defenders in Colombia, which I covered earlier.

I am delighted that we have a renewed parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe, including a number of hon. Members of this House, and I look forward to them reporting back and bringing such matters to the House’s attention. I am glad to share that we are seeking election for another term on the Human Rights Council from 2026 to 2028, where the UK leads negotiations on resolutions that put in place accountability mechanisms for priority countries around the world, including Syria and Sudan.

As I said, in Syria, Assad with support from Russia and Iran has committed brutal atrocities. Our focus now is on working with the Syrian people and the international community to move quickly towards an inclusive political transition. We are committed to tackling impunity and supporting an effective and independent International Criminal Court as the primary international institution for investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes of international concern.

Promoting compliance with international humanitarian law is the cornerstone of UK policy, and we call on all parties to conflicts to implement their obligations, reducing impacts on civilians and other non-combatants. This autumn, we published an updated voluntary report on our domestic implementation of international humanitarian law, and we are supporting other states to do the same. As ministerial colleagues have said in the House, we are clear about the unacceptable humanitarian situation in Gaza—a matter that many in this House have championed. We will continue to use all the diplomatic tools at our disposal to work with international partners to bring about a ceasefire and secure the release of hostages.

Accountability is not just about international processes, and that is why we work in partnership with the USA and the EU to ensure that Ukraine can fully and fairly investigate allegations of war crimes in its own judicial system. We have our best legal minds working on that. In other places, such as Nigeria, we are advising on dealing with vulnerable witnesses, including children and survivors of sexual violence. Our legal diplomacy is second to none.

The third of our five themes focuses on championing equal rights for all. I have already spoken about the Taliban’s disgraceful exclusion of women from all aspects of public life. We want to address the stalled progress and roll-back on the rights of women, girls, LGBT+ people, and those belonging to other marginalised groups globally. That is why we will continue to champion the rights and freedoms of women and girls, including in sexual and reproductive health and rights, and to support women’s rights organisations and challenge harmful disinformation. We will support the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, working with female parliamentarians globally to address barriers to their political empowerment.

We have announced a groundbreaking global programme to prevent technology-facilitated gender-based harassment and abuse, backed by over £27 million of funding. I hope that the hon. Member for Lagan Valley will be pleased about that development. That programme will pilot innovative work with partner countries to promote a safer online experience, counter extreme misogyny spread online, and support victims and survivors of online harassment and abuse.

Finally, we will defend the rights of people belonging to marginalised communities—for instance, by funding the Commonwealth Disabled People’s Forum to advocate for disability rights. By championing freedom of religion or belief for all—if the hon. Member for Strangford were in his place, he would be pleased to hear me say this—we are fighting back against the threats that so many people face for simply what they do or do not believe in.

The fourth theme focuses on supporting accountable, effective and inclusive institutions. Sadly, we are seeing a drop in the quality of institutional life internationally. We want to work with partners to protect democratic processes and strengthen Government legitimacy. In Moldova, for example, we have helped President Sandu’s Government to counter Russian disinformation through the UK’s Government Communication Service International. In Brazil, we are sharing UK expertise, as the Government there develop their own online safety Bill. In Nigeria, we are supporting Kaduna state to improve budget transparency. We are continuing long-term work with Nepal, supporting the transition from conflict to democracy.

The final theme focuses on responding to shared global challenges by prioritising human rights and governance principles. This debate further challenges the Department to get that right. We are living in a rapidly changing world that demands that we adapt, but we must do that while maintaining our principles. We are taking multiple steps to do that effectively. We are conducting a national assessment of our approach to tackling business-related human rights abuses, including in global supply, and ensuring that our actions are firmly based on the evidence of what does and does not work. We are actively engaging at the Council of Europe to address the impact of climate and nature emergencies on human rights. We are hosting the second democracy action partnership with Indonesia in Jakarta to support democratic resilience in the region. We are working with partners, such as the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience, to remotely verify and document digital content relating to the horrific violence in Sudan.

Those five themes lay a strong foundation for defending and promoting human rights around the world. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East will agree—based on what I have said, and indeed on the FCDO’s earlier event to mark Human Rights Day, which sadly we both missed—that the Government do indeed see human rights and peace building at the heart of our work. We recognise that many Members share that commitment, and I thank them for attending today. Ultimately, a freer, safer and more just world is in everyone’s interests, and this Government will work flat out with our partners to achieve that goal.

Question put and agreed to.