Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) not just on the work that she is doing today by highlighting this issue, but on all the work she does to highlight the sexual exploitation of women and child marriage. The Minister could do very well to listen closely to what she says at all times, because it is built on many years of experience.

It is with great trepidation that I follow the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is another expert on these issues. She has dedicated many years to talking about sexual exploitation not just in the international sector—as she has so eloquently just done—but in the domestic sector. Again, the Minister could do very well to listen to the Chair of the Select Committee, because she brings incredible expertise on these issues. They are complex and difficult to solve, and trying to solve them overnight is not something that we will be able to do; it has to be for the long term.

There can be few people in this country who were not shocked to the core by the revelations that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire talked about. They challenged our trust in organisations that are household names—organisations that many of us would freely give to on a regular basis were being brought into the frame for overseeing some of the most horrendous abuse in places such as Haiti and far beyond. We have heard heartbreaking accounts from victims, and we have been shocked at the way that perpetrators were simply allowed to move from organisation to organisation, almost as a matter of right. I was glad to hear about today’s debate because of the ongoing work that the Select Committee has done on this issue, but also because of the inability to find a solution and the need to hold the Government to account.

At the time of the revelations, I was contacted by some of the whistleblowers in one of the international organisations. I was absolutely shocked to the core at the lack of reporting mechanisms. Indeed, as I think the Chair of the Select Committee said, the fact that victims had to report the abuse to the perpetrator is completely unacceptable.

Through their work over the past 10 years, the Government have put themselves at the centre of international development. The UK Government are an acknowledged world leader on these issues, which is why it is important to hear from the Minister how they are taking forward that leadership position. If one thing is for sure, the UK Government cannot step back from that now. We have to step up to the plate and continue to use vigorously our international development clout, which we undoubtedly have, for the good of the sort of people we are talking about.

In their response to the most recent Select Committee report—the Committee has produced two and I think it has almost finished a third report on this issue—the Government rightly said that things cannot be changed in a short period of time. It requires a sustained commitment from each Minister who holds the portfolio that my hon. Friend the Minister has at the moment so that we can see a change, not just in the mechanisms, as has been said today in this debate, but in the ingrained culture that pervades these organisations.

That culture is pervasive because, as the Chair of the Select Committee has said, people who prey on the vulnerable go to where the vulnerable are, whether it is at home or abroad. The recent evidence that the Select Committee has taken for its third report has underlined that. We are talking about a group of workers who have remote and insecure tenure and we have a group of people who are in need of support and have no power at all; they are the most vulnerable people on the planet.

We need clarity from the Government, both today in this debate and in the long term, as to where the international development portfolio sits within the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I am an enormous supporter of the merging of the two Departments, as it could be a power for good to have the leadership of the Foreign Secretary on these issues. That is not to take away from previous International Development Secretaries, but that leadership puts it at the heart of the most powerful people in our Government. However, I am not clear as to exactly where the international development strategy lies within the former Foreign Office’s body of work on a daily basis. I would be grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister if he could set that out today.

I believe that the FCDO—or the former Foreign Office—has a fantastic track record on issues to do with women’s rights around the world, whether under William Hague, when he was dealing with women in areas of conflict, or, indeed, when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had that role, dealing with education for girls around the world. This is strongly within Foreign Office culture , but the Minister needs to set out today and as the weeks go on, exactly how that strategy will be embedded in the new departmental structure, as it is important that people understand that.

I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has talked about this: the 2018 to 2030 strategic vision for gender equality on international development is crucial. It is an important piece of work that sets out the Government’s long-term commitment to issues of gender equality around the world. The issue of sexual exploitation is at the heart of that.

Can the Minister reconfirm the Government’s commitment to that strategic vision in its entirety at this stage, as well as looking at the more practical measures that the Select Committee has now put forward on two occasions to make sure that there is lasting change on issues of sexual exploitation? Embedding measures around whistleblowing and reporting are crucial, as well as having that strategic vision at the heart of the Government’s work.

In conclusion, under the newly-formed FCDO, the Government have an opportunity to renew their international credentials on these issues of support for women around the world. Sexual exploitation, unfortunately, is not going away. Action taken over the last 10 years has put this Government at the centre of these issues on the global stage, and we must not stand back now. Tackling sexual exploitation needs to be at the heart of the FCDO’s strategy for gender equality as we move forward.

I know my hon. Friend the Minister is a great champion of these issues. He is a man of great integrity, and I know that he will bring that to this job. I look to him to ensure that within the Government’s work, this is not just something that is talked about in Westminster Hall debates, but is tackled on a daily basis—not just within his portfolio, but by all of his colleagues within the newly formed Department.