UN Women

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for an excellent contribution.

It is a great pleasure and honour for me as a new MP to speak for Labour from the Front Bench. In government and opposition, and throughout its history, the Labour party has fought relentlessly for women both in Britain and internationally.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and members of the Backbench Business Committee on securing today’s debate on UN Women, in the week of the centenary of international women’s day. It is disappointing that, unlike past years, Government time was not found for this important debate. Let us hope it does not symbolise a lack of commitment to women by this Government.

As we recognise and celebrate 100 years of women’s advancement, it is clear from the debate how much more there is still to do in our own country and around the world. Members on both sides of the House spoke movingly of the importance of UN Women and its potential contribution in the coming years.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) spoke of the importance of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and of the Equality Act 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) talked about his VSO work in Bangladesh. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) spoke movingly about the plight of women in the Palestinian territories. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) spoke powerfully about the experience of women who face sexual violence and rape in many conflict zones.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) talked about the pay gap between men and women in this country and elsewhere. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr Macshane) told us of the plight of women faced with trafficking and prostitution, and many other powerful contributions were made by Members on the Opposition Benches.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest spoke of the importance of this once in a lifetime opportunity for us to back UN Women, to fight for women’s interests around the globe. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) also referred to the importance of providing women with support, especially to ensure that they can play a strong role in peace and security initiatives. There were many powerful contributions from both sides of the House, often based on direct experience in countries around the world as well as in the UK.

I turn to the substance of the debate: why UN Women is such an important agency and why it provides such a unique opportunity for our generation to tackle the challenges facing women around the world. Only 19% of the world’s parliamentarians are women. That is not good enough. We must do more to empower women in political life. Many Members spoke about that issue. We must do more to ensure that our political institutions hold their Governments to account on policies affecting women, as the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough powerfully highlights.

A third of the world’s female population have been beaten, abused or coerced into sex. Women have the right to live free from violence, and the world must do more. As we know, women’s rights and interests are often an afterthought in matters of war and peace. We must do more to strengthen women’s participation in peace processes and conflict resolution, as was highlighted in the debate. We must do more to empower women in terms of their life chances.

I am proud that in the UK my party did a huge amount to improve women’s representation in Parliament. Other parties have followed suit, but only 20% of MPs are women and in this Government only four Cabinet Ministers are women. I hope that we will see many more women on the Government Front Bench in years to come.

As much as I enjoy debating with the Under-Secretary, I am sure that the irony is not lost on him that the Government’s International Development and Foreign Affairs teams are both male-dominated. I hope that in future we will see women in those teams speaking up for women in this country and around the world.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

To ensure that the hon. Lady’s last point does not deflect from the most substantive parts of the debate, I think it is helpful to note that our spokesman in the other place is Baroness Verma and that our coalition partner’s spokesman is Baroness Northover. I would be most grateful if the hon. Lady would let us know the names and gender of all members of Labour’s International Development team at the time of the previous Government’s departure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Under Labour, there were many women in Cabinet posts, but not enough. I hope that we can work across the parties to ensure even greater representation of women in positions of power in this country, because we are a symbol of progress around the globe and have a responsibility to ensure that more women are in positions of power.

Let me move on to the issue of violence against women. Women still bear the brunt far too often in conflicts around the world, facing sexual and domestic violence as well as human trafficking. Whether in Haiti, Congo, Afghanistan or Darfur, women have been exposed to brutal attacks, often as deliberate tools of political and ethnic violence. Mass rape is used as a weapon of war. I am only too aware of just what that means, as someone who was born in Bangladesh, a country that gained its independence 40 years ago in a war that cost 3 million lives. To this day, that society remains haunted by stories of rape and brutalisation. In other countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women are far more likely than soldiers to be victims of violence. In south Kivu in the DRC, around 40 women are raped every day.

Women most need protection against sexual violence in times of war and conflict, yet the Government are watering down the European convention to combat violence against women—an international agreement that would protect women against domestic and sexual violence—arguing that it should apply only in peacetime, not in conflict situations. They are refusing to treat violence against women as a violation of human rights. As we have heard, the Government failed to sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking. Those policies, if supported, would save lives and protect millions of women around the world.

On economic empowerment, we will not unlock development and economic growth in developing countries unless we ensure that women have the same rights as men to access finance, the workplace and education, and have the same property rights. We will not meet the third millennium development goal without tackling gender inequality. Women do two thirds of the world’s work and yet receive only 10% of the world’s income. Here in the UK, as has been mentioned, women are bearing the brunt of the cuts. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has shown so powerfully in her campaign for the Fawcett Society, women are being hit by the cuts much more than men are.

There is also a political and moral side to development. It is why we fought and won the argument about landmines, and it is why we believe that democracy, civil society and empowerment are essential to development. For women, globally, it means that we need an organisation, such as UN Women, not just to champion poverty reduction, but to improve the status of women. That is why we need to fund UN Women.

Britain has been a leader in international development, and if we delay support, we risk holding others back, so I repeat our calls to unlock the core funding that is so desperately needed for UN Women. Ministers repeatedly assured us that, on the conclusion of the multilateral aid review, a decision would be made on funding UN Women, yet no decision was made, and now we are told that a decision will not be made until June. I therefore ask the Minister: are we going to see any movement on transitional funding between now and June? We have heard talk of between £1 million and £10 million being released. Can we have an assurance that, if it is released, it will not represent the total allocation? We also call on the Government to support fully the European convention on combating violence against women, and to sign up to the EU directive on human trafficking.

The motion before us rightly places tackling international gender inequality at the heart of our support for UN Women, and I hope that this House will give its wholehearted support to that and to UN Women. I hope, too, that Treasury Ministers see the strength of feeling in the House in this debate and unlock that badly needed funding for UN Women. I also hope that by the time we celebrate international women’s day next year, we will see a flourishing UN Women, working with the UK Government to empower women throughout the world.