Violence against Women and Girls

Mary Macleod Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The responsibility of families does not get rid of the responsibility of the education service.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that some schools are already taking a lead on this issue and teaching it, and that that, along with partnership working with the police, is incredibly important? That is what I find in my London borough of Hounslow.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Yes, of course there are schools that are doing this well. The problem is that we do not have a comprehensive system—I will go into the details later—that guarantees excellent sex and relationships education. It is unsafe not to have such a system in schools, and that is my argument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I appreciate being called now, because—unfortunately—I have to go to the Westminster Hall debate at 1.25 pm. I want to talk about protecting future generations of women and girls from violence and forced marriage.

Worldwide, 10 million girls are married each year before they are 18, which is equivalent to more than 27,000 girls per day, or 19 every minute. In the developing world, one in three girls will be married before they are 18. In October last year on the first international day of the girl, the United Nations population fund released new data that predict that, by 2020, if child marriage prevalence trends continue, 142 million girls will be married before they are adults and, because of the rising global population, that means an increase in child marriage to around 14 million girls per year.

In most cases, laws and international conventions are in place to protect children from being forced into marriage, yet Governments fail to implement those protections. We do not know exactly how many British girls face forced marriage, but evidence shows that they are being taken out of the country to be married against their will. Here in the UK, families are also getting children married off in the community or in religious ceremonies. Some take advantage of the fact that the law in Britain allows the marriage of 16 and 17-year-olds with parental consent.

Understanding the causes and consequences of early and forced marriage is paramount in preventing girls from losing their childhood, their dreams and the opportunities to make their own choices about their lives and relationships. Causes and practices vary according to context, yet there are common themes. In some areas, child marriage has been practised for many centuries, while in others it emerges as a response to conditions of crisis, including political instability, natural disaster and civil unrest.

Poverty and gender inequality are common drivers of child marriage. Many parents marry their daughters off young to protect them from poverty, sexual harassment, the stigma of extramarital sex, and sexually transmitted infections. They also marry daughters off to reduce their own economic burdens, and yet child marriage entrenches those problems and does little to protect girls or boys.

In the developing world, a lack of access to education is both a symptom and a cause of child marriage, especially for girls, many of whom get very little formal education because they are valued more for their future roles as wives and mothers. As a result, they miss out on opportunities to learn, to build financial independence and to make autonomous decisions about their futures. Those effects are passed on to successive generations.

Child marriage is a shocking infringement of human rights and the rights of the child. It has many significant and worrying consequences. It leads to higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidities; it contributes to infant mortality and poor child development; it is associated with violence, rape and sexual abuse, resulting in emotional and psychological problems, desertion and divorce; and it increases population growth and hinders sustainable development.

[Mary Macleod]

In Bangladesh, an eight-year-old child ran away from her 60-year-old husband whom she had been forced to marry, and had acid poured over her. She has no life at all and is not supported or protected in the least. We must protect against such things.

[Heather Wheeler]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. The stories one hears from around the world are shocking.

Child marriage takes away opportunities for education and training, and removes autonomy. It removes economic independence, undermines self-confidence and reaffirms gender stereotypes. It is associated with, and helps to perpetuate, harmful traditional practices, including female genital mutilation. It is a severe threat to combating poverty and the achievement of the millennium development goals.

As the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on population, development and reproductive health, I want to highlight child marriage and maternal and reproductive health, in response to “A Childhood Lost”, the group’s report, which was published last year following parliamentary hearings. The consequences of child marriage for maternal and reproductive health are grave. Child brides are unable to negotiate protected sex with their husbands, and are often under pressure to start bearing children immediately, which leads to a prolonged period of reproduction and larger numbers of children.

Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s, and also face much higher chances than older women of experiencing pregnancy-related injuries such as fistulas, and of contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. The children of child brides are 60% more likely to die before the age of one than children whose mothers are aged 19 or over. Those problems are compounded by the fact that child brides are often unable to access life-saving health care for themselves and their children, including contraception, family planning advice and maternal health care.

The British Government have demonstrated a strong political will to tackle forced marriage in the UK and abroad, and a Bill to criminalise the offence in the UK is being drafted. As I said at the beginning, legislation is not enough to combat child marriage. Governments need to revise laws and policies on related important issues such as divorce, inheritance and property ownership to protect girls. Improved co-operation is needed across Government Departments and embassies, including in the UK. Other harmful practices such as female genital mutilation need to be tackled, and access to sexual and reproductive health services, improved registration systems, and professional support and shelters, are essential.

I am interested to know whether the Government will consider including child marriage in the personal, social, health and economic education curriculum; whether they will make registration of religious marriages compulsory in the UK; and whether they will increase the minimum legal age for marriage to 18 when criminalising child marriage. I urge the Department for International Development and other donors to evaluate existing interventions so that aid is spent effectively, and to scale up programmes to prevent child marriage and support survivors. The Department for International Development has shown great leadership in family planning via the June 2012 family planning summit. We need to work to meet the needs of family planning, and sexual, reproductive and maternal health care of girls and women of all ages, whatever their marital status.

We parliamentarians must work with colleagues in other countries, particularly in the developing world, to galvanise political will and to share best practice in tackling child marriage through programmes and services, and legislative reform and implementation. We urgently need to do something for women worldwide whose cries are not heard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

On 16 December last year, a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi was gang-raped, and 13 days later she died. If this debate today could be in her memory, showing the world that this sort of abuse cannot be tolerated, some good may come from it.

We have already heard plenty of examples today. A girl of nine has given birth in one of Mexico’s western states. She was just eight when she became pregnant. My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) has already spoken about forced marriage. Only 25 years ago in the UK, it was not considered an offence to rape within marriage, and 603 million women currently live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime.

One of my first cases at my weekly constituency surgery involved a girl who came to see me with her mother. She was absolutely convinced that her sister had died as a result of domestic violence but that it had not been recognised by the police. A second girl who came to see me had been raped twice by a man who was about to leave prison after serving a sentence for a separate offence. She was absolutely petrified, and the following weekend she ended up in hospital after having tried to take her own life. All this is happening right on our doorstep. We do not need to look at what is going on internationally; it is happening right in front of us.

I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) mention Chiswick, where the world’s first women’s refuge was started. I am proud to represent Chiswick today, and I believe that it is part of my remit as a Member of Parliament to stand up for all victims of domestic violence and abuse, locally and elsewhere in the country. In London, especially, we have issues. Speaking at the Tackling Britain’s Gang Culture conference last month, Chief Superintendent John Sutherland of the Metropolitan police said:

“I regard domestic violence as the single greatest cause of harm in society.”

He said that it was having devastating effects, and he is so right. Thankfully, the issue is at the top of the agenda in my borough of Hounslow. London has an issue with teenage girl rape, and that is something that we have to resolve.

Now is the time to act, and I was glad to see Members from both sides of the House at the One Billion Rising rally today. Those from my side of the House included my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), for Battersea (Jane Ellison), for Devizes (Claire Perry), for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin). We were there in Parliament square to say that enough is enough, and that now is the time to act.

Globally, we should exert pressure through the United Nations, which is looking at the matter. UN Women was set up in 2010 to focus efforts on gender equality and the empowerment of women, and I will be going next month to the UN Commission on the Status of Women to talk about this issue.

Here in the UK, we have made progress in some areas, including the £40 million of stable, ring-fenced funding for specialist domestic and sexual violence support services. We have increased the number of rape centres in London to four, but we need more. Stalking has been mentioned already, as has female genital mutilation, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea has done a great deal of work. Still more needs to be done. Internationally, we also need to put the pressure on and work together on conflicts, and I am glad that there will be a further debate in the Chamber today to discuss sexual violence in conflicts, because that should not be tolerated either.

Locally, in my constituency and my borough, we have taken various kinds of action. We have the Hounslow one-stop shop, which is run by the Metropolitan police, the Hounslow community safety unit and the Hounslow domestic violence outreach service. In December last year, Operation Athena, a London-wide crackdown on domestic violence, led to 22 arrests in my borough. The JAN Trust is visiting schools in Hounslow to deliver its Mujboor—meaning “forced” in Urdu—workshops on forced marriages and to educate young girls on their rights.

There is still much to be done, however, with regard to global awareness as well as to what we are doing right here in our own constituencies. That is where we all have a part to play. Every Member of the House can play their part by going to each of their schools—especially their secondary schools, but perhaps schools with younger children as well—and spreading the word that we can all take action on this issue. If we can encourage our colleagues to talk to young girls and boys about the issue, we will have played a part in changing the environment of violence that we see around us. There should be a zero-tolerance approach to violence and abuse in relationships, and I would like the Minister to consider whether Ofsted could measure what schools are doing to educate children in this area.

Let us join together and say with one voice that enough is enough, that violence against women and girls will not be tolerated, and that we will make this country a much better place.