Poverty: Developing Countries

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, about 40 per cent of adult women in the eastern Congo are widows. Many of them have suffered from sexual violence during the conflicts that have occurred in that region. What are the Government doing as part of our bilateral aid programme to the DRC to ensure that the rights of those widows to shelter, security and in particular to land are able to be used by them in a way that gives them the opportunity to rebuild their lives following the conflicts in that area over the past 30 years?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is right. DfID does indeed identify the particular problems of widows in the DRC and has programmes to support them. Again, he is right that widows often lose their land when widowed, and one of the programmes that DfID is carrying out not only in the DRC but elsewhere is to support the rights of women in that situation to land when widowed.