Bangladesh: Human Rights

Lord Bishop of Derby Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, for securing this debate. We have heard some very powerful speeches about the horrific level of direct political violence, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, introducing the wider context of a culture of abuse of human rights. I will pursue that in a slightly wider sense, first, in terms of the treatment of the Rohingya refugees, who are Muslims. The director of Human Rights Watch says that the camps they are in are some of the worst in the world and that the Government seem to have no strategy for dealing with that problem. The Government of course claim that they lack resources, as a poor country, to deal with all these refugees and there is an issue about whether they are turning them away or trying to send people back. I ask the Minister and the Government, not least in relation to our investment in aid, what we can do to support efforts in capacity-building for good citizenship and changing a culture where this inter-group violence is so destructive.

I declare an interest as a trustee of Christian Aid and want to give three little examples of what Christian Aid Bangladesh is doing to build capacity between different groups for more harmonious living and better citizenship. First, there is a human rights education and community mediation programme, which is trying to change the mindsets of people who find themselves potentially in conflict. It is working particularly with women, who are often marginalised from any participation processes, and is trying to establish local organisations for mediation and proper, civilised engagement around issues rather than the direct action that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has just been referring to.

The second piece of work is to improve participation by different groups in local government. Again, the infrastructure is in its infancy. This is trying to encourage citizens to use that infrastructure and develop local ownership of what policy-making is about, rather than the frustrations that have been referred to.

The third area is to work with partners in rural areas of poverty, particularly to help single women and households headed by women to take a full part in economic development. Christian Aid Bangladesh is working, with its partners, in something like 175 villages, with 17,000 people involved. The issue I would invite the Minister to comment on is that clearly there are major issues about political violence, as we have just heard, and the use possibly of security infrastructure to deliver on that. Particularly in the way we use aid, and consider the future use of aid, to what extent can the Government take into account and encourage the kind of capacity-building of responsible citizenship among different groups that seems to be the only long-term hope for trying to create an atmosphere and a sense of responsibility of mutuality whereby people with different traditions and economic pressures might learn to work together, and therefore to undermine the pressures that surface, as we have seen in these horrific mutual attacks between groups and the killing of enemies?