Gender Equality

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Throughout the White Paper, a theme of trying to focus our development support on women’s and girls’ projects is justified by the fact that if you are doing the right thing for women and girls, you tend to be doing the right thing across the development piece. She is right that what is happening in Afghanistan is appalling. We have repeatedly condemned the Taliban’s decision to restrict the rights of women and girls, including through UN Security Council and Human Rights Council resolutions and public statements. The UK is committed to ensuring the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, including the continued participation of female aid workers and full access of women and girls to humanitarian services.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, unsustainably high fertility rates in sub-Saharan Africa—for example up to eight births per woman in Niger—lead to poverty, desertification, conflict and emigration and are surely unsustainable. I welcome the Government’s reply so far and ask the Minister to continue to ensure that the status of women is high in our priorities and that therefore, over time, this will lead to an easing of the pressures on population, particularly if we insist that women are educated for longer.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right and there are some stark statistics here. But the advantage from the global perspective is that every £1 spent on contraceptive services beyond the current level would save £3 on the cost of maternal, newborn and abortion care by reducing unintended pregnancies. Over 800 women or girls die every day due to pregnancy or childbirth complications and at least 200 million women and girls alive today, living in 31 countries, have undergone female genital mutilation. These are stark statistics and underpin the determination to address this area in our bilateral aid.