Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Mike Freer Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) for promoting this private Member’s Bill. I am pleased to say that I shall support it. I also commend the Home Office’s work, not least because, when the Prime Minister was Home Secretary, every time I raised specific issues to do with domestic violence, especially relating to LGBT and orthodox religious groups, I found not only that she was on the button, but that she drove through significant change. I also commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, whose Department has been at the forefront globally of tackling the issues faced by women and girls, especially violence against them. Ratifying the convention will allow us to tackle a major problem and social issue across the whole world.

I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS. HIV-AIDS remains the biggest killer of women and girls of reproduction age, yet we often do not talk about the consequences of sexual violence against women. The taboo of sexual abuse against women has within it a hidden taboo, namely the HIV infection caused by the forced sexual violence of rape or coercion. The stigma and silence associated with that can compound the desire for secrecy.

I want to focus on that particular issue, because although sexual violence is vastly underreported as an HIV risk, it is an important risk that we need to talk about. Sexual violence and coercion may increase susceptibility to HIV, in so far as non-consensual sex is associated with increased risk through vaginal and anal trauma. I make no apology for using rather crude and what some people might call distasteful references to vaginal and anal penetration. I say it for effect, because too often we use euphemisms in this place when actually we forget about the real trauma, pain and suffering involved.

The incidence and prevalence of sexual violence, including mass rape, increases the likelihood of sexually transmitted infections and HIV. It may require only a very small internal or external genital injury to facilitate transmission. It is important that we call the issue out for what it is. We are not talking about a slap or something that is semi-glorified in soaps. This is something that has to be tackled in detail—gruesome detail—if we are genuinely to understand the life-changing and irreversible impact on the women affected by sexual violence.

If it is a major risk, we have to tack on to that the fact that rape is a weapon of war. Too often in this place we talk about the jets and the bombs, but we forget to talk about one of the biggest weapons of war that is used across the globe, and that is rape. It is happening not just in war zones; the decreased stability in unstable regions and villages contributes to a higher prevalence of opportunistic sexual violence. Given the high levels of sexual violence occurring in conflict-affected countries, we have to acknowledge that HIV is an unspoken impact of that sexual violence.

A growing body of evidence suggests that, even when the war is over, sexual violence and its ramifications do not disappear. Even when peace agreements have been signed, sexual violence continues, because rape is not just a weapon of war. When women seek to put food on the table or seek safe passage from a village under bombardment, they may have to trade their body to get food and clothing, or to get to a place of safety, and that is rape in every sense of the word. I must tell the House that that violence is under-reported and we should call it out.

I realise that we are short of time, and other hon. Members want to speak, but I wanted to talk about HIV. In many such countries, a woman who is raped and violated suffers from stigma, and a raped and violated woman who is HIV-positive is even more isolated and stigmatised. Such women are often thrown out by and isolated from not just their family, but their villages and communities. If we are to break the cycle of sexual violence and HIV infection, we must ratify the convention, and we must send the message today that we want that to be done quickly.