International Women’s Day

Lord Hussain Excerpts

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, on International Women’s Day, while we are discussing very important issues such as steps taken to support the education of women and girls in the United Kingdom and worldwide, we must not forget those women in conflict zones facing physical torture, verbal abuse, harassment, rape and murder with complete impunity. One of those areas is Kashmir, where I was born.

According to a London School of Economics and Political Science article of 14 September 2020 entitled “Indian Apathy and Systemic Violence against Women in Kashmir”:

“The reality of Indian democracy is most conspicuously exposed in Kashmir, a truth that no nationalist Indian wants to hear. On August 5, 2019, the Indian state stripped Kashmir of article-370 followed by the denial of very essential rights via regular crackdowns on the internet … and phone services, restriction on movement, prolonged lockdowns, and so on to make Kashmiri life even more wearisome. Besides, the routine humiliation—army and police checkpoints, surveillance, harassment, blockades, illegal detentions, profiling—that the people face has become a gruesome yet banal reality of their everyday existence … For the half-widows of Kashmir (husband disappeared/taken away by security forces or militants) leading a dignified life can become a real challenge. In a typical Kashmiri society, women’s identity is intertwined with their husband’s once a woman is married off, she becomes the man’s responsibility. Thus, many of these women (half-widows) and their children get into a survival crisis with no source of income. Nyla Ali Khan an academic … writes ‘the lack of closure in their lives makes their existence unbearable’ … The deep-seated prejudice in India towards Kashmiri women and men is also evident in the selective criminalization of Kashmiris typically—Ali Muhammad Bhat, Lattef Ahmad Waza, Mirza Nasir Hussain wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years, and recently a Kashmiri couple in Delhi, Jahanzaib Sami and Hina Bashir, arrested on alleged charges of links with ISI—as it is quite easy to picture Muslim and Kashmiri labels together with ‘beard and burqa’ as terrorists”.


This is the tip of the iceberg. There are tens of thousands of men and women held in different parts of Indian prisons, often charged under the notorious Public Safety Act or sedition, provocation and anti-state activities laws.

I will share three examples of women held in prison away from Kashmir for a long period. The first is Asiya Andrabi, founder and chairman of one of south Asia’s biggest women’s organisations, Dukhtaran-e-Millat. Aged 58, she is one of the most prominent woman pro-freedom leaders of Kashmir, and is a science graduate in biochemistry, biotherapy, and bacteriology. Andrabi is the first woman resistance leader from Kashmir, who has been booked under the Public Safety Act 20 times since 1993. In 1998 she was arrested for opening rehabilitation centres for widows and orphans of rebels and political dissidents killed by the Indian state.

The charge against Andrabi is simple: she fiercely advocates Kashmir’s liberation from Indian rule. In October 1990 Andrabi married Ashiq Hussain, a resistance ideologist who happens to be Kashmir’s longest-serving political prisoner. The couple have spent only four years together in their 28-year marriage. The 58 year-old Andrabi suffers from various life-threatening diseases and is denied medical support.

The second is Sofi Fehmeeda, who on 20 April 2018 was arrested by the National Investigation Agency of India and charged with sedition. Since then, Sofi has been imprisoned in Tihar, and her mother is still waiting for her release. The third is Nahida Nasreen, who has spent two years in prison, also in New Delhi, which is far away from Kashmir. She is a graduate in theology and Islamic studies.

There are thousands of similar cases of men and women who are held in Indian prisons. Their only real crime is to have taken part in the campaign for the right to self-determination, which was promised by India at the United Nations in 1948 and 1949. I ask the Minister to say what the British Government can do to aid the release of prisoners, such as these three ladies, from Indian prisons. Furthermore, are the British Government prepared to link human rights to their free trade deal with India?