Displaced Children

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, listening to my noble friend Lord McConnell and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, I am struck, not for the first time by a long chalk, by how fortunate we are to have two such people in our midst in this Chamber. They have both won respect across the House, irrespective of party, and the contribution that the noble Baroness made as a Minister was evidence of somebody who took what she cared about in this context and what she believed was important into action in so far as that was possible—and I think we all appreciate that.

My noble friend Lord McConnell is tireless on these issues. It is very difficult for an old hand like me to follow two such people because their information is so much more up to date and first-hand than mine. I have a wealth of information, but it comes from previous years. However, some principles continue to apply.

As I listened to them, and indeed as I prepared my own thoughts on the debate today, I kept remembering that, as we are constantly reminded, we are the fifth-wealthiest nation in the world. If that is the case and if we have a conscience or any sense of social responsibility, there should be no question but that on these issues we should be a world leader. It is not just about what we say but about what we do—and that of course means that we have to look at our own position here in the UK. I find it quite incredible that when these youngsters, who have been through nightmares of the worst order, manage to get here and are allowed to stay, we do not see that re-establishing family relationships for them is absolutely crucial. It might even save money, because in the end it might be much less expensive to ensure that some kind of family support is there for them in their predicament in this country.

We are going to be debating the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, next Monday, and it seems to me that between now and then the Government ought to brush up their arguments on this front. We need to know what they are doing to try to establish some way in which these young people can have some kind of family context in this country. This is of course all related to peace, stability and security. We want people who feel secure and confident and who are not alienated. That is where I think sometimes we have to think a bit more ambitiously about what we can positively do to help them in their predicament. It is important to do so before they become prey to extremists and others.

I try to keep in touch with the NGO community because I know from my own experience of working in that area that NGOs have first-class insight and experience that is very difficult for anyone else to challenge. I have been asking them what they feel about the issues before us today. One thing that Christian Aid, my old organisation Oxfam and others have been emphasising is that 50% of all internally displaced people are women and 40% are children. This increases in specific conflicts such as the DRC, where 60% of IDPs are children. Just think of it—60%. Some 17 million children are internally displaced due to violence in conflict, with many more displaced due to disasters. There were 2.18 million new internal displacements in the DRC, coming second only to Syria, yet the DRC has one of the most chronically underfunded crises. Only 20% of countries with data on conflict-related IDPs disaggregate this by age, compared to 56% for refugees.

In the DRC, towards the end of 2017, armed groups were occupying schools in South Kivu, Tanganyika and the region of Kasai, putting the education of 64,000 children at risk and increasing the risk of their joining armed groups. In 2016 the UN verified 2,334 grave violations against children in the DRC, including recruiting 492 children for armed groups. In Syria, acute malnutrition in children shot up in Ghouta from 2.1% in January to 11.9% in November, and infant deaths due to a lack of food were reported for three months from October to December. In Yemen, 75% of IDPs are women and children, with children severely at risk of missing out on education. In 2016, 45% of marriages recorded involved girls under the age of 15. Those are some of the realities with which we are confronted.

So what are front-line workers recommending to us? They are reminding us that they are calling on the UN Secretary-General to commission an independent expert report on IDPs, to create a global focus on the issue, to garner good practice and to engage with states with high levels of IDPs. They welcome the UK Government’s commitment to the global plan of action, GP20, and their support of a high-level panel for IDPs, but they urge the UK to ensure that an independent expert report is commissioned as part of the high-level panel.

IDPs face the same vulnerabilities as refugees but do not have the protection of refugee status. They are more likely to be displaced to host communities where it is harder to identify them. Humanitarian crises with large numbers of IDPs are chronically underfunded compared with those in which there are high levels of refugees. IDPs struggle to access services such as education, health and food, which are woefully lacking in IDP camps. Where they can access these services in host communities, it is often to the breaking point of the services and the detriment of host communities, who are often in poverty themselves.

I can think of no more immediate and urgent situation than that of the crisis of the Palestinian displacement. I take this opportunity without qualification to put on record—here I speak with first-hand experience—the tireless, imaginative, selfless work undertaken by UNRWA. The decision by the President of the United States to slash the US contribution to the work of UNRWA was one of the most wantonly irresponsible and wicked things done by a leader in recent years.

What are we thinking of? Do we really want to encourage extremism and increase the likelihood of instability and chaos in a situation where people have already suffered too much? Of course not—but if we do not, education in particular is crucial for deprived communities. There has been tremendous emphasis in recent years on primary education, early school education and, perhaps, secondary education—but university education is also vital for deprived people. We surely want them to be able to fulfil their potential and become leaders in their own right. We should not make higher education the preserve of others, when higher education for them is terribly important.

One other practical point needs to be emphasised. UNICEF and others are calling for improvements in data collection and monitoring of IDP children. One difficulty in devising policy is that there is so little reliable analysis and information about their plight—the noble Baroness spoke powerfully about that.

I come back to my starting point. We are the fifth-wealthiest country in the world. If we want to be respected and remain a world leader, whatever we do about Brexit, it is in the sphere of moral leadership that we should be demonstrating our commitments and priorities—not by asserting power but by asserting values, standards and example. That is what we need, and we need it strongly and with vision from our leaders. I thank my good and noble friend Lord McConnell most warmly for having given us the opportunity to have this debate.