Queen’s Speech

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Loomba (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech. This year, without much fanfare, Bill Cash MP introduced a fundamentally important Private Member’s Bill. As noble Lords will recall, the International Development (Gender Equality) Bill received such unanimous support that it sailed through both Houses without any problem and received Royal Assent in March. It alters the very nature of the law that governs the UK’s aid decisions.

We put at the very heart of the International Development Act 2002 the necessity of the Secretary of State to direct funds with the aim of reducing inequality between men and women. It also forced the Government to cast a critical eye over the aid we give as a country, and to consider whether we are doing all that we can do to work towards MDG 3.

The UK can be a little smug about some of the millennium development goals, but there is no cause for self-congratulation just yet. Goal 3—to promote gender equality and empower women—will never be reached if we ignore the specific economic challenges faced by one group of women in particular. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I am talking about widows. Every time I get to my feet in this House, noble Lords may think, “There he is, talking about widows again”. However, just a few weeks ago the British Army lost five men in a disastrous helicopter crash in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three of those men left wives behind, but do we stop to think what that means? It is impossible to imagine how devastated their widows must feel.

I declare my interest as a founder and chairman trustee of the Loomba Foundation. We all know by now that there are more than 245 million widows around the world, with 500 million children. Through no fault of their own, many of them face many challenges such as discrimination and physical, psychological and sexual abuse. The question is: is Britain doing its bit to end these practices, empower widows and ensure that they and their children are treated as full members of society, or does our Department for International Development prefer to ignore the millions who are voiceless in order to tiptoe around cultural sensitivities?

As a country we spend more than £150 million in India—2% of DfID’s current budget. One of the four goals for DfID in India is to improve the lives of more than 10 million poor women and girls. Yet, among the 6,500 words the Government use to outline their operational plan in India, the word “widow” does not appear once. The current plan for UK aid to India finishes in 2015, after which our contribution will fall to just £29 million by 2016-17. However, even as we give less to India financially, we can give more intelligently.

First, we need to name the problem. Discrimination against widows and their children is real, so why do we not mention it? The UK is outspoken about the need to empower Dalit girls, but widows and their children in every state and social class can be seen as just as untouchable and as easy victims. Secondly, we need to continue to work with the Indian Government and partner groups to empower women and girls, and to improve gender equality. Cruelty towards widows is embedded in a culture that says that when a woman loses her husband, she has no real life any more. That is cultural suttee, and it can happen only when women’s inferiority is taken for granted.

Thirdly, we need to ensure that DfID leads the way in showing other nations that widowhood means an extra layer of difficulty through which many women and girls have to fight. As we move towards the next round of MDGs, and since UN Women has designated 23 June as International Widows’ Day, I ask the Department for International Development to work closely with UN Women to include the plight of widows in the post-MDG framework.