Afghanistan: Women’s Rights

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, for bringing this matter to our attention. Our involvement in Afghanistan over the past number of years gives this country an especial responsibility. It is often not difficult to convince people that when things are bad they should engage. However, we must always be extremely careful that when we disengage we do not leave a situation which rebounds into something which is worse than before we got involved. One of the first principles one teaches young doctors is: first, do no harm. One of the great dangers is that we have raised the expectations of democrats in general and women in particular in Afghanistan. There is a real danger of a reaction against that, and those who followed our lead and took our encouragement being the ones who will suffer most.

One of the great anxieties for many people is that, despite the change in political institutions, the resilience of an old culture is so strong that it may overwhelm all the achievements that there have been. As the noble Baroness has pointed out, there are some things which have improved significantly: political engagement by women, even at a relatively senior level, albeit in smaller numbers than one would like to see; political involvement through elections; and, of course, education, which the noble Baroness also mentioned. Recently, when the UN Women deputy executive director for policy and programme, John Hendra, visited one of the governorships, the governor there pointed out that 12 years ago there were two girls in school in the 12 schools in his governorship, and now there were 10,000; and in the country as a whole, that number approaches 3 million, as the noble Baroness has said.

These are positive things. In fact, they are essential if there is going to be further development. At the same time, however, we are very much aware of the high level of violence; not just the almost traditional, tragically cultural, violence that there has been, but very specifically targeted killings of, for example, senior female journalists and government officials. That makes it quite clear that any woman who speaks out or stands up is regarded as a target for those who want to turn things back and attack the position of women. This is a serious problem and the question for us must be what we can do.

The noble Baroness has pointed out that, as a donor Government we have some, albeit perhaps modest, leverage. That is one of the reasons I was rather disappointed in reading the last monthly monitoring report to which I had access, that of October 2013. Although there is mention of political and educational issues, both very positive, there is very little else about what DfID and our other government departments are doing in support of organisations which are protecting the rights of women.

Almost more troubling to me was the account of the trilateral meeting in Downing Street on 29 October, where the Prime Minister met President Karzai of Afghanistan and Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan. Pakistan is not a country that has particularly distinguished itself as a protector of women—absolutely the contrary in recent times. So I ask myself why we are not engaging more with India. There have been difficulties and some horrific incidents in India recently, but the people, the politicians and the Government of India regard those as dreadful aberrations that must be stopped, which is a very different thing from those countries that regard them as culturally congruent.

This neglect of India as a key partner is something that goes right back to the beginning of the engagement. I remember talking to both senior American security officials and senior Indian army officials about whether we had consulted India in any way before the invasion of Afghanistan. The answer was that we never even thought about it. Here is our ally, with 1 million men under arms, just across from Afghanistan, which could make a real difference and have real leverage; but we do not seem to be engaging with it. When we leave, we may have some little leverage and involvement, but India will be there. Can the Minister say what we are doing to engage not just with Pakistan—which is perfectly reasonable and appropriate—but with India to ensure that, in the region, there is leverage there to ensure some maintenance of the possibilities for democracy in general and the position of women in particular? India, as a country, at least recognises the importance of this matter even if it does not always have a perfect record—no country does, I suppose—in dealing with these kinds of questions.

I have a real fear that that any improvements we achieve in Afghanistan and some of the other places where we have intervened may be short lived. It is not just that we might return to the status quo ante but that there might even be a reaction against them. Along with the noble Baroness, I seek reassurance from the Minister about our involvement with those who are likely to have positions of responsibility—not just those who are currently in government but those in the Taliban. Those of us who were advising engagement with the latter some years ago were told it was a nonsense, but of course in the end it was an inevitability, not a nonsense. We should try to find some way of ensuring that they understand that, if their country is to benefit as part of the community of nations, it must measure up to some of these important requirements that the community of nations now rightly recognises, in particular on the position of women.