Sexual Violence in Conflict

Douglas Alexander Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for advance sight of it.

The Foreign Secretary is right to say that condemnation is simply not enough and that action is required against these abhorrent and heinous crimes. When this matter was last debated in this House, I put on record the Opposition’s support for the Government’s preventing sexual violence initiative, and I paid tribute to the Foreign Secretary’s considerable and personal efforts in this area. I am happy to do so again today. Indeed, I welcome the steps that have been taken since that debate in March, including by the Foreign Secretary himself, to help maintain and to raise the profile of this issue on the international stage. In particular, I welcome the decision to host a global summit in London next year, co-chaired by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Special Envoy Jolie.

The Foreign Secretary did not make reference to the work of campaigning organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Saferworld and others. I hope and trust that that was an inadvertent oversight, but I am sure he will join me in welcoming their vital contribution to help advance this cause in recent months and over many years. Their work has been indispensible in placing this issue firmly on the international agenda, so will he assure the House of their active and engaged participation in the summit to be held in London next year?

Sexual violence in conflict is today all too prevalent across the world. The perpetrators are rarely held to account for their crimes, as we have just heard. Indeed, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the issue as

“the most pervasive violation of human rights across the globe”.

The Foreign Secretary is therefore right when he says that this is the time for the international community to step up its efforts to respond to these continuing and pervasive crimes.

When the Foreign Secretary last addressed this House on the matter back in March, he set out a number of measures that the Government were introducing to try to tackle this issue globally. I would like to ask a series of questions about their subsequent implementation. First, sexual violence as a tool of war remains one of the least prosecuted crimes, and I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s focus on that work today. Will he set out for the House how many UK personnel have been deployed in post-conflict areas, as part of the UK team of experts, to help improve local accountability structures since the initiative was first launched? Will he set out what discussions he has had with international partners on contributing their skilled and experienced staff to an international team of experts that can be deployed more widely? I welcomed the UK’s commitment to increase funding to the UN Secretary-General’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict. Will the Foreign Secretary update the House on whether other countries have followed the UK’s lead in increasing funding for this office?

The Foreign Secretary covered some specific countries of concern. Despite our well rehearsed disagreement with the Government on the Prime Minister’s attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit last month, I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s efforts to raise the issue of preventing sexual violence on the agenda while he was there. During his visit, he emphasised that the UK was ready to offer more assistance and co-operation to the Sri Lankan Government to tackle this issue. What response has he received from the Sri Lankan Government since the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to those offers and how he plans to take this work forward?

In response to a written question in October, the Government confirmed that Burma has now been added to the list of countries, despite being omitted from the original list. Will the Foreign Secretary explain the reason for not including Burma as part of the initiative when it was first launched?

The Foreign Secretary spoke about the work that is being done today by the UK’s team of experts on the Syrian borders. Can he provide any more details about the nature of the work, and whether there are plans for support to be given to those in need in Syria itself? Will he also say whether he raised this issue with the Syrian National Coalition when it was in London last month?

The Government have taken important steps to help to raise this issue on the international stage and we pay generous tribute to their efforts to do so. Where they continue to pursue steps to help tackle this pervasive and deplorable abuse of human rights, they can rest assured that they will have the Opposition’s support in their endeavours.

[Mr Hague]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for this initiative and our work on it in recent months. It is one of those subjects on which cross-party support, pursued consistently by all of us, is very important and helps to make a big impact on the rest of the world. I know that feelings on this will be appropriately strong among all political parties in the House.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the campaigning organisations. I mentioned that I envisaged the summit giving a big role to civil society, and that certainly includes all the organisations he mentioned. I have often stressed how our efforts build on the good work done at the UN and by non-governmental organisations around the world. I am pleased to say that many of those NGOs sit on the PSVI steering board that I have established, so they advise me directly on the development of this initiative. This afternoon, I will also be meeting organisations like Amnesty—it sits on our human rights advisory group, which also discusses these subjects. NGOs and other campaigning groups are thus fully involved in this initiative, and I value their support enormously.

The right hon. Gentleman is right that this is the least-prosecuted crime. That, of course, is what we are trying to change: shattering the culture of impunity is our central objective. We want to break into that and show that prosecutions can take place. We have more than 70 people—doctors, lawyers, forensic experts, experts in gender-based violence—in our very impressive team of experts. They have deployed in much smaller numbers—they have other jobs in their areas of expertise—to various countries, some of which I listed in my statement. For example, we have deployed a team to Libya to assess how best to engage with civil society and women’s organisations there, while the basic infantry training we provide to Libyan troops will incorporate a sexual violence element. As I mentioned, we are doing the same in Mali.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about Burma. We are providing support to legal assistance centres in Burmese refugee camps in Thailand and to trauma care camps in Kachin state, both of which deal with rape cases. Our embassy in Rangoon is currently considering how we can do more in Burma, and we are also promoting legal reforms that address and deter sexual violence.

We have done a lot of work on the Syrian borders, supporting the collection of evidence of human rights violations and abuses, including of sexual violence. We have trained more than 300 Syrian journalists and activists in documenting and exposing human rights abuses, including crimes of sexual violence. These are examples of the support our team of experts are providing.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about funds for the special representative. We have been the most generous of countries in recent years, but other countries have given additional funding—not many of them on the same scale as us, but I continue to encourage them to do more.

On Sri Lanka, yes we secured the commitment in the Commonwealth communiqué, which I have to point out we could not have done had we not been there. While I was in Sri Lanka, I also gave a public speech on preventing sexual violence in conflict that was widely reported in the Sri Lankan media—on the television and across the newspapers—so I think we drew the attention of a far wider audience in Sri Lanka to this subject. I discussed with the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka specific support for our initiative, and we await their reply on whether they will support it. Of course, there are aspects that the Sri Lankan Government will find difficult to sign up to, which is why it is important to put it to them and to continue putting it to them. We can only do that, however, if we meet them, which we would not have done had we followed the right hon. Gentleman’s advice.

That, however, is our one disagreement. Otherwise, of course, there is strong cross-party unity on this issue, and I look forward to Opposition Members as well as Government Members playing a big role at next June’s global summit.