Women’s Rights: SheDecides Day

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

This is an area that we have been at the forefront of for some time, even going back to the coalition and the work done by the noble Baroness’s colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, to raise this issue up the agenda when she was at the department. Violence against women and girls is something we have taken a lead on. My noble friend Lord Hague was at the forefront of raising the issue of preventing sexual violence in conflict. These are areas in which we have a proud tradition, but the need and the cases are still so widespread that we need to take action.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, the Istanbul convention will have a real impact on women’s lives in Europe, but what is the current status of progress reports, and what will be the status of the convention vis-à-vis Brexit?

[Lord Bates]

The convention at the World Humanitarian Summit set out a number of ambitions in this area. We have incorporated those into our global strategy for our work with our intentional partners, which is unaffected by the events of Brexit.