International Women’s Day 2016

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

We are just less than one month short of the 105th anniversary of Emily Wilding Davison’s night in the Undercroft here. In and of itself, that action was not a turning point, but it was part of a larger movement and societal change that have at least made strides in the right direction.

Emily Davison is a fine example of how it often takes straightforward thinking and direct action to make the changes that later generations come to see as normal. Changing the normal view of things is what drives society forward and it is very seldom easy, especially for women. I suggest then that it is the responsibility of every decent Government in every civilised nation on this earth to help advance the rights of women.

Less than two weeks ago, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom told us how his Government had helped arms manufacturers from the UK sell arms to Saudi Arabia. That is a country where women cannot open a bank account without their husband’s permission, or try on clothes in a shop—the thought of an undressed woman behind a door, it seems, would be too much for Saudi men. It is a place where a woman cannot drive a car. I think that I am right in saying that it is the only country in the world where it is illegal for a woman to drive.

When a teenage girl was gang raped in 2006, the courts sentenced her to corporal punishment for being out of the house without a chaperone. She received 90 lashes for getting raped. Just last year, Suad al-Shamari, a Saudi women’s rights activist and the first female lawyer to appear before a Saudi court, was released from prison where she had been detained for three months without trial for advocating women’s issues. She was released when she promised to reduce her activism. This is the nation that the UK Prime Minister feels it is appropriate to celebrate doing business with.

Human rights are women’s rights and the rights of the women of Saudi Arabia should be at the top of the agenda for inter-Governmental relations. International Women’s Day has to be about promoting the rights and freedoms of women across the world. It has to be about ending repression, about engendering respect, and about parity of esteem between women and men.

The Government of the UK should be crowing when they make advances in those areas rather than providing more weapons to what is, essentially, a repressive regime for women. In the face of all that, women in Saudi Arabia are changing the face of their country. Despite the roadblocks put in their way, we see ground-breaking women such as Haifaa al-Mansour who wrote and directed the first feature film to be shot there, and Samira Ibrahim Islam and Hayat Sindi, who are Saudi scientists who proved that Saudi women can match men in science. Using humour to chip away at the patriarchy is female Saudi comedian Amy Roko. They are transforming their lives and making the changes that will create a new normal for future generations of Saudi women, but they need the help and support of the international community if they are to succeed.

A Foreign Secretary stood in this Chamber once and promised an ethical foreign policy. He has gone and so has any semblance of an ethical foreign policy—it left here before he did—but the civilisation that we so readily pretend or aspire to demands that just such a policy be the guiding light of our international relations. On International Women’s Day, please let each Member here pledge that the rights and protection of women should be uppermost in their thinking about international relations.