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Main Page: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)Department Debates - View all Tom Tugendhat's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat.
I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for bringing us on to International Women’s Day. Today is obviously an important day for celebrating the actions of so many courageous women around the world. Will my right hon. Friend speak today about those who have been made particular victims, those who have been chased out of their homes, the young women who have been sold into trafficking and not supported as refugees, and those women who are even now being brutalised in north Africa as they are forced over the border as slaves into southern Europe? Will she please speak about the action that her Department is taking to defend those women and girls?
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point about how many women and girls are suffering, and covid has made that situation worse. That is why we are restoring our humanitarian budget, why we are restoring the women and girls budget and why we are working on our preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative to stop that happening, as well as increasing the amount of development spending we are using to tackle human trafficking, working with the Home Office. We are working on our international development budget, and we will be announcing it fairly shortly, along with our overall humanitarian strategy.