Violence against Women and Girls (Sustainable Development Goals)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I thank the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) for making such a coherent and detailed case.

Without doubt, women’s empowerment is crucial to achieving sustainable growth and development across the world, so we need to address that issue. According to the UN, more than one in three women experience physical or sexual violence, mostly from an intimate partner. As my party’s equalities spokesman, I am very happy to contribute to this debate. The hon. Gentleman referred to goal 5, on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. That is exactly what I am going to speak about, and I will give a few examples.

The Home Office has published its refreshed strategy for ending violence against women and girls, and it has said that in 2017 a service transformation fund will be launched to encourage new approaches. It is most welcome that the Government are taking this issue seriously and are taking action but, as the hon. Gentleman said in his introduction, we cannot take our eyes off the ball. As I have said previously, it is all too easy to forget those who are thousands of miles away. Sadly, nations such as ours, which have the influence to make a difference, too often turn a blind eye.

Let me give a couple of examples of where equality for women does not exist. I could give dozens if I had the time, but I do not. This is the story of a 12-year-old girl—Kakenya Ntaiya, a member of Kenya’s Maasai tribe:

“When I was 12 years old, my family organized a ceremony to transition my sisters and myself to become women…I was first because I was the oldest. I was told to open my knees, so I opened them. A woman grabbed my clitoris and cut it off. I bled. I fainted. But I am so lucky I am alive, because so many girls die from this.”

She had no idea that the ceremony would include female genital mutilation until after the woman made the cut.

The second story is of a young girl from India. While still a teenager, Monica Singh had the courage to stand up for her rights and to say no to a marriage proposal from an older man. However, she paid a very high price for claiming control of her future. After the rejection, the man tried to intimidate her into marrying him by repeatedly stalking and harassing her on her way home from school. She was just a teenager. One day, the man blocked her path completely. She said:

“Before I knew it, a bucket of acid was thrown on me…All I could feel was searing pain. Ninety per cent of my body had no skin left, and 65 per cent was permanently disfigured. I had to undergo 46 surgeries and be fed through a straw for more than a year of my life.”

When we hear such horror stories from across the world—not film stories, but stories from real life—we cannot fail to be annoyed.

When it comes to sex, no still does not mean no in some parts of the world. In Singapore and India, non-consensual sex within marriage is not a criminal offence and does not constitute rape as long as the wife is above a certain age—15 in India and 13 in Singapore. In Yemen, where child marriage is rife, there is no lower age limit for defining rape in marriage. Laws affecting people’s national identity continue to discriminate against women. In Jordan and Lebanon, a child needs a Jordanian or Lebanese father to automatically gain citizenship; their mother’s nationality is not passed on. Again, that is clear discrimination against women.

There are 46 countries that do not provide legal protection against domestic violence. In Nigeria, it is within a husband’s legal rights to beat his wife for the purpose of correcting her, as long as it does not cause grievous bodily harm. What is grievous bodily harm, if not beating one’s wife? Whether it is done gently—if there is such a thing—or ferociously to the point of drawing blood or breaking bones, it is grievous bodily harm.

A fatwa imposed in 1990 makes Saudi Arabia the only country in the world in which women are forbidden to drive. Although a fatwa is not an official law, it is a religious declaration that carries the authority of law and imposes strict modes of behaviour. There are more female fighter jet pilots in neighbouring Jordan than women who can drive in Saudi Arabia—that is a fact. Saudi Arabia’s recent progress on women’s rights offers some hope. Saudi women were allowed to vote in municipal elections, and 19 women gained seats in local authorities—a landmark moment in the country’s recent history. We have to be mindful of the need to respect sovereignty, but the international community has to come together to address this issue and put deserved pressure on Administrations, wherever they are in the world, to abandon such blatantly sexist legislation. Sadly, that is not even the tip of the iceberg. We have barely scratched the surface, although we will do so in this debate.

I will conclude on this point, because I want to keep to my five minutes. There needs to be pressure from a co-ordinated international effort to confine such blatantly sexist laws to the history books. We must condemn practices such as FGM and acid attacks. We have a lot to do, but this House can take a stand today. I look forward to the Minister’s response.