Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to enable NGOs to improve the (a) identification, (b) recording and (c) monitoring of hidden incidents of persecution against women from minority religious communities.

We remain deeply concerned at the scale of Freedom of Religion of Belief (FoRB) violations in many parts of the world. We recognise that people's religion and gender can increase their vulnerabilities, particularly those from minority groups.

The Department for International Development's programme on FoRB is supporting NGOs to work with minority religious communities. The programme will build the capacity of international development actors to mainstream FoRB into their programmes and develop ways to give voice to religiously marginalised groups. In addition to this, the programme will investigate existing evidence gathering tools on FoRB. The lessons will be openly shared through both reports and guidance.