Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will take steps to (a) strengthen existing and (b) develop new training programmes to help women from religious minority communities understand their rights in countries that do not recognise and uphold those rights.

We remain deeply concerned at the scale of Freedom of Religion or 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.