Ukraine

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, on his speech and welcome him to the House of Lords.

Around the world, we watch the fear and violence in Ukraine. Our hearts go out to all of them. I welcomed the Prime Minister’s Statement last night, but at the same time he did not mention aid and I felt he did not go far enough on the whole question of sanctions. I congratulate noble Lords on the Liberal Benches on what they had to say on sanctions. They are really important.

As the crisis in Ukraine escalates, it is important to hear the voices of women on the ground, as well as global experts. Last week, I attended a meeting convened by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, which stands with the people of Ukraine, especially the women peacebuilders who have been struggling for their freedom, democracy and integration in Europe. We simply must amplify their calls to action. Leading up to this terrible situation, they worked on the ground with other NGOs to provide economic and financial support to Ukraine and to ensure that aid is given to those women who are working in Afghanistan—I am so sorry, in Ukraine; I usually make speeches about Afghanistan.

The majority of SME workers in Ukraine are women. With Covid and the present situation, they are unable to be helped. They are the breadwinners of those families, as we know. I hope all the international aid, and aid from this country, has a gender and family lens.

We must ensure that there is monitoring and accountability of internal actors. The OSCE and other third-party organisations must closely monitor and report on the human rights situation. They must prepare and publish a joint statement on how security threats affect the women in Ukraine, since we know what has happened to women close by in Belarus.

We must ensure women’s participation and leadership. Those assessing and reporting on the current security situation are almost exclusively men. We as a country have promised that we will try to ensure that there is 50:50 representation in these sorts of situations, otherwise women will be erased from the crisis narrative, which will hinder their ability to prepare. We must advance inclusion security. Gender should be mainstream in all internationally supported programmes, and security responses in Ukraine and the OSCE should create a regional action plan on Resolution 1325.

We should support civil society, including those international and local NGOs working on the ground, such as the International Rescue Committee. Women’s rights organisations and activists should be supported through targeted funding. We should train and provide mentorship to them from afar, and when this tragedy is over.

We should engage regional and international allies to leverage unprecedented co-operation from ourselves, the United States and our European partners, and maybe as far as Australia and New Zealand. We must raise awareness through the media, such as the World Service and other media platforms we talked about earlier.

I call on the Home Office to publish an urgent plan outlining how the United Kingdom can offer safe and legal passage to people fleeing Ukraine. We must absolutely do this, and I call on the Minister to make sure this will happen, because nothing has happened at all. I do not want to see what has happened to other refugees happen to those in Ukraine.