International Women’s Day

Lord Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mitchell]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. It has been a stunning debate so far, and she deserves every credit for introducing it. I want to talk about an organisation called Women for Women International. Here, I have to declare an interest because my wife sits on the international board. Indeed, I go with her to several countries and I am the unpaid bag carrier.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who is not in her place, told us about Nepal, from which she has just returned. We returned from Rwanda last month. That visit was a very moving experience, certainly for me. There were 20 women and me, and I managed to survive the experience—in fact, it was very rewarding. We all know about Rwanda, where there was a genocide in which 1 million people were hacked to death in 90 days. You visit a country such as that with your heart sinking—worried that it will be absolutely ghastly. Actually, it is a very uplifting country. It seems to have got itself together and is moving forward with a vision—perhaps the subject of another debate. It is a country with hope but, of course, with terrible memories.

I have visited Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda. In Rwanda, it can be argued that 1 million people would not have died had the United Nations taken action, with 5,000 troops who were close to stopping it happen. You can go to Bosnia and Srebrenica and see that 9,000 men might not have been killed, again had the United Nations not stood by. I have to say that a lot of people like the United Nations; I have mixed feelings about it.

Anyway, we are not talking about the UN, but about women. I want to mention a particular woman, Zainab Salbi. Her father was Saddam Hussein’s private pilot, and when she was in her teenage years, her mother, seeing the writing on the wall, got her out to live in the United States. As Zainab was growing up and she saw what was happening in Bosnia, she went to Sarajevo and saw all the activities taking place there. This was in the country of ethnic cleansing and war by rape. As a result, Women for Women International has been set up; today, it has a budget of $30 million and 320,000 women have been through its programme.

The organisation operates in post-conflict zones in eight countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. It does amazing work in some very dangerous places. Its mission is to make women who have been through the most terrible experiences contributors to society—and economic contributors. It does that in two ways, which is unique. First, it has set up a mechanism of sister to sister relationships. A sister will be a woman living in the western world who contributes $30 a month to another person, a sister, in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or wherever it happens to be. The money goes directly to those women. In addition, the sisters have to write to each other. I must say that I was a bit sceptical about all that, but when I have seen sisters meeting sisters, as we did in Rwanda, the tremendous empathy between those two sets of women was magnificent.

The charity also does training on the job. Women will come in for a year's training and learn about their civil rights, inheritance, hygiene, safe sex, nutrition and even stress management. Most of all, they learn about setting up small businesses. That is where the economic side comes in. Some of them are given micro-loans; some are not. We saw an example in Bosnia where women had set up chicken farms or were growing tomatoes. In Kosovo, we saw an amazing woman who was in beekeeping. With a small loan, she had set up three hives and had expanded the business to the extent that there were now 50 hives. Her family was enjoying €5,000 a year by way of income. Not only that, that woman was now teaching other women how to keep bees. In Rwanda, we visited co-operatives. I was weeding in a maize field under the blazing sun just outside Kigali.

I shall rapidly give a few statistics before I finish. A survey was conducted of 20,000 people: 81 per cent of the women were earning an income; 84 per cent were saving money; 92 per cent had gained skills; 97 per cent fully understood hygiene; 93 per cent family planning; and 95 per cent nutrition. Many of those women are now involved in their community. The amazing statistic is that 12 per cent of them are running for political office in their communities.

Women for Women International is a highly inspirational organisation. It is no-nonsense, it is doing good, and I love being a bag carrier.