Impact of Conflict on Women and Girls

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) for securing this debate on such an important topic and to all the colleagues who have spoken in this debate so eloquently and passionately. We have heard devastating statistics about the impact of conflict on women and girls. We have heard testimony about the importance of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Listening to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), I was reminded strongly of the words of Gisèle Pelicot: “Shame must change sides”. That is key to bear in mind.

During the speeches of other Members, I reflected on the fact that conflict-related violence on women and girls is not perpetrated only by soldiers in uniforms with guns. We know that, in the context of conflict and post-conflict, there is an increase in domestic violence against women and girls. The inequalities and the injustices are writ large through societies, and that is why this debate is so important.

This is an issue of personal interest and concern for me. Before I came to this place, I worked for many years in the field of international development, including in northern Uganda during a time of conflict, so I have been thinking of the women that I knew and worked alongside during that period. I have also worked with the ecumenical accompaniment programme in Palestine and Israel that works for peace in that conflict. I was thinking of the women in Gulu in northern Uganda who I used to work with from People’s Voice for Peace and the role that they played. They were local women supporting women in their communities who had been affected by sexual violence, displacement, theft, violence, and the complete loss of livelihoods and the lives of loved ones. That work was done by women within those communities to support their sisters to endure through extremely difficult conditions.

In thinking about the remarks that I wanted to make in this debate, I thought of those women. I thought of women in Gaza, in Israel, women in conflict all around the world, and refugee women who I know in the UK—the lucky ones who have escaped from situations like this. I thought of women I know from Iran and Ukraine who I hope would support the remarks that I am going to make and my requests of the Minister. It is so important that, when debating these topics, it is those women’s voices that we have at the centre of our thinking and our discussions.

I have four key asks and key lessons from reflecting on this topic. The first is—I think Members present agree on this—the UK Government must do everything to defend, to protect and to uphold the rights of women and girls in all our international interactions, as we should in all our domestic work, too. I am sure that is difficult and complicated diplomatically sometimes, but it must be absolutely at the forefront and explicit in all our work.

The second point I want to make, echoing the call of the hon. Member for Norwich North and others here today, is that we must reverse the cuts in UK aid. The cuts made under the previous Conservative Government were, in my view, shameful. It is incumbent on the new Government to reverse those cuts as quickly as possible. I know from friends and colleagues how devastating they were.

I was interested to read prior to this debate a briefing from Women for Women International. In a very large-scale survey that it did, only 25% of women in conflict situations had received any aid at all. In Afghanistan, it was less than 10%. The quantity of aid really does matter. Aid is not the only solution to alleviating the impact of conflict on women on girls, but it is one thing that the UK can do.

My third point is that it is not just the quantity but the quality of aid. It is essential that the framing of the conflict response and the humanitarian response explicitly considers the needs and rights of women and girls. As the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central mentioned, women and girls have specific needs with regard to, in particular, sexual and reproductive health and protection against violence.

I am a big fan of the use of cash transfers in humanitarian aid. Again, bearing women’s rights in mind when distributing aid is crucial. Cash transfers can be one way to really empower women in a conflict response situation. We need to ensure that our aid programme gives long-term core funding to women’s rights organisations—women-led organisations. Having worked in the international development sector—I can see colleagues nodding; I am sure they will completely agree with this—I think that long-term funding for organisations that are working to address conflict is crucial. We all know, as Members of Parliament and as people who have worked in public services, the difficulty of doing things hand-to-mouth on a year-on-year basis. It is so important to have long-term core funding to build the capacity, particularly of women’s organisations —women-led organisations—to challenge the inequalities and injustices that they have faced often for decades in order to uplift their voices. That is my fourth and final point.

Conflict resolution is the only long-term way to get away from the disastrous stats that have been cited so far—indeed, not just the resolution of existing conflicts, but prevention of potential conflicts. Amplifying women’s voices and creating space for women’s voices and women’s participation, as the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) emphasised, is essential. Unless the voices of women and girls are heard and heeded in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, we will not be able to tackle the problems that we have been discussing today.