Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateRosie Duffield
Main Page: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)Department Debates - View all Rosie Duffield's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberWe are calling for an immediate ceasefire. There were talks in Addis before Christmas. We seek progress through the United Nations, where we hold the pen on Sudan, and also through the Troika, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union. We are doing everything we can to end the appalling situation in Sudan, which my right hon. Friend has just described with great eloquence.
The UK works closely with the international community including the G7 and G20 and through the UN to protect the human rights of all of Afghanistan’s people and to co-ordinate a consistent international response. In December my colleague the Minister for South Asia in the other place raised the recent attacks on Hazaras with the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan.
Last week the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) and I met members of our respective Hazara communities. They also regularly attend the all-party parliamentary group on Hazaras, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow). My concern is that the kidnaps, rapes and persecution that the Taliban regularly use against the Hazara women and girls largely go unreported due to a lack of diplomacy or to journalists being unable to access the region. Would the Minister or a member of her team be prepared to meet those whose families are still stranded in the region and are subject to what is essentially the ethnic cleansing of the Hazara people?
The hon. Lady sets out some of the shocking issues that we know about. Indeed, Daesh claimed responsibility for the November attacks and we are continuing to see these challenges. I will happily take back her question to my colleague, and I am sure that he will be happy to meet them.