International Widows Day

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I should note my entries in the Lords’ register, including my role as vice-president of UNICEF UK and my support for the Welsh-based charity, Positive Women, which of course works with widows.

I acknowledge the remarkable role of the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, not just in securing this debate for another year to ensure that we recognise International Widows Day here in your Lordships’ House but for the incredible way in which, over the years, he pioneered, championed and then delivered this recognition of the importance of the position faced by so many widows around the world. He first established the day without the support of the UN and then made sure that the UN came in behind it, so that it has become a global phenomenon. His courage and determination is inspiring to me and I am delighted to take part in this debate today, in solidarity with his efforts.

I want to focus my remarks on young widows. There is an incredible amount of data and important analysis in the report. The speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, have outlined a lot of the detail in the overall picture and I do not want to duplicate them. But I am struck by the fact that in a world where one in five girls will be married before the age of 18, and where many of them—perhaps a majority—will be forced into those marriages in countries that are susceptible to violence and conflict, the number of young widows today continues to increase rather than decrease. This is because of those forced marriages and the likelihood of their husbands being involved in conflict, which will lead to them dying and the women being left alone—in many cases, as teenagers with two or three children already by the age of 17 or 18.

When we reflect on the overall situation of widows, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, there is discrimination and inequity, rape and abuse, and the theft of their assets by members of their husband’s family after they are widowed. Given all these terrible things that happen, we can only imagine with some difficulty how much worse that must be if you are 15 or 16 years old. They then face a life with decades of exclusion and discrimination, being shunned by their society and in some cases barred from the ability to practice their faith locally. In many places they are not allowed to accumulate assets or even work, yet they have to look after the children who are the product of a marriage that, even if it was a happy one, ended so abruptly.

There is a real need to recognise that internationally as we work towards the sustainable development goals, as the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, rightly identified. At the core of those goals is the idea that no one should be left behind. Internationally, when people talk about that objective of leaving no one behind, there tends to be a focus on marginalised ethnic communities in remote places, or on marginalised people with disabilities in societies where there is little in the way of legal rights or the provision of services for them, or other groups that perhaps come to mind more readily. It seems to me, however, that these young widows are one such group—one that could so easily be left behind unless given a particular focus over the next 12 years through the sustainable development goals.

We need, therefore, to do two things. First, as highlighted by the content of the World Widows Report, but also by some of the statements and analysis published in the run-up to International Widows Day this year, we need to disaggregate the data—to work towards disaggregation—so that we get not just the total number of women who become widows, or the total number in poverty around the world, but the breakdown by age, which is a particularly useful tool in designing programmes and strategies to help young women left in this situation. I wonder whether the Minister thinks that is a good idea and whether we could influence the work going on internationally towards disaggregation of the data.

Secondly, we need programmes. I am struck by the new global executive director of UNICEF, who has made a particular effort during her first few months to talk about the need for UNICEF to do more with adolescents. While politicians, governments and international agencies have focused globally on the early years over recent years—as was noted in the previous debate—the importance of working with adolescents, in all sorts of difficult situations around the world, should not be ignored.

These young widows, however, who are essentially adolescents with children, and no legal rights in many cases, need attention from UNICEF and other international bodies. I would be interested to know from the Minister what we can do globally, either to bring donors together or to work to ensure, through our influence in the United Nations, that young widows get the attention that they surely need.