General matters

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to start this debate, particularly on this day, which is seeing another first for Parliament.

In 1948, a tired world, exhausted after two world wars, did the right thing when it came together to proclaim the universal declaration of human rights. The concept was simple: it was to reaffirm the faith

“in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women”,

and to state:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

In 1998, the United Kingdom passed the Human Rights Act, which merely enshrined the European convention on human rights in British law. We were one of the first nations to sign the convention in 1950. The Foreign Secretary stated at the weekend that he wants to increase Britain’s influence in the world, but we cannot take our place on the world stage while making a commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act.

Members will also be aware of the doctrine of the margin of appreciation that applies to interpreting the convention. It provides for a range of discretion, under which the convention can be interpreted differently in different member states, to take into account cultural, historical and philosophical differences between Europe and the nation in question, so there is no need to be fearful of the Act.

I am sure that the whole House will agree that the dignity and worth of a person is important, and that equality is a goal worth pursuing, yet there are millions of men and women who struggle silently for equality at great personal cost. In Iran, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is still awaiting her fate. The signatories to the open letter in The Times to the president and supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and a letter from 119 Members of this House to the Iranian Government have called on them to free her. The charges against her have changed. Her lawyer has had to flee. Her son has been arrested, as have German nationals. The German Bundestag has now passed a resolution to engage with the Iranian Government to lift the death penalty. Ashtiani’s human rights, like her testimony, count for less than a man’s. The man who was her co-accused is free and does not face the daily torture that she does of not knowing whether she is to live or die. We call on the Iranian Government to start the new year by resolving to free her.

Men and women both suffer human rights violations, but the position is more difficult for women, because 70% of the worlds illiterate people are female, and 75% of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons are female. Women also face barriers, which give them less access to legal institutions, for example. In Burma, the recent release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was internationally welcomed and celebrated, but with the failing economic situation there are high volumes of human trafficking, especially of women and girls. These are the 21st century slaves, and we should be outraged in the same way as William Wilberforce was in this House. The enslavement of girls and women into prostitution is demeaning, offensive and undertaken by coercion.

Women are routinely subjected to genital mutilation in countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, and the effect is now being seen here. This is not a religious issue; it reflects deep-rooted inequalities between the sexes and extreme discrimination against women. Worst of all, it is carried out on the voiceless: babies and young girls. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 must be enforced, but other techniques should also be used to educate people and to explain to those countries that this is not an acceptable practice.

In 1990, the Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen wrote of the 100 million missing women. He noted that women lived longer than men in most circumstances. Even poorer countries in Latin America and Africa have more females than males. In places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they disappear. China has 107 males for every 100 females; in India, the figure is 108, and in Pakistan, 111. Kerala, which has championed the education of women, has the same excess of females as the United States, however.

In 2001, the World Bank argued that promoting gender equality was crucial to combating global poverty. The Self Employed Women’s Association was founded in India in 1972, and, by supporting women who are starting businesses, has achieved staggering success in raising living standards. Other initiatives, such as the “Because I am a Girl” campaign—Members may be aware that it organised a display in the Committee Corridor—are attempting to break the cycle of gender discrimination and poverty through education and targeted support. Such projects and initiatives help women to achieve their rightful place in societies that put them at risk following conflicts that render them victims. The transformation of those women's lives also transforms destabilised societies.

The principles of the universal declaration of human rights can be implemented through the empowerment of women through education and the use of micro-finance to give them equality. I believe that the struggle for gender equality is the moral challenge of this century, and that the future of the world depends on it.