Genocide Determination Bill [HL]

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. I would also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, not just for his perseverance on this Bill, but for his lifelong advocacy on behalf of so many.

I am not a regular contributor on foreign affairs, but I was moved to speak today because of a radio programme, specifically a dispatch from Afghanistan on Radio 4’s “From Our Own Correspondent”. It is about a little girl, five-year-old Shaiqa. I realise that her story is not unique and there are many such stories noble Lords can tell, and have told, from personal experience. Sometimes a story just grabs you, so I hope noble Lords will not mind if I share it as the focus of my contribution. This is as I heard it, in abridged form.

“Five year-old Shaiqa has a striking face, with brown hair and big black eyes. She stares at us suspiciously, clinging on to her father, 34 year-old Sayed Ema, her small arms wrapped around his neck. ‘She thinks all strangers might be doctors, that’s why she’s scared’, he tells us, as he holds her close, comforts her and kisses the top of her head. A month ago, Shaiqa spent two weeks in hospital after she had surgery for appendicitis. Sayed and Shaiqa live in Ghor province in the Hindu Kush, but amid a severe hunger and jobs crisis, Sayed barely makes enough money as a labourer to provide food for his family. Funding medical treatment is simply out of reach.”

“So, Sayed made an unbearable choice. ‘I sold her to a relative so I could pay for her operation’, he says, his eyes welling up with tears. ‘If I had money, I would never have taken the decision to sell my daughter. But then I thought, what if she dies without the surgery? This way at least she is alive. That is enough for me’.”

“Sayed negotiated with the buyer—a better-off distant cousin—to keep Shaiqa at home for as long as possible. ‘If I had taken the whole sum at once, he would have taken her away immediately’, he explains. ‘So, I told him, just give me enough for her medical treatment and over the next five years you can give me the rest. Afterwards, you can take her. My wife and I don’t talk about the situation in front of her, but I think Shaiqa has started to understand. I do not have the strength to think of the moment when she will have to leave’. As they sit hugging each other, the close bond that Sayed and Shaiqa share is evident, as is the grief of the father who believes he has failed his daughter.”

Sayed, of course, is not to blame for the poverty, the desperation or the Taliban’s recent decree that legalises child marriage while hardening the already severe divorce laws—the result being that, when she is older, there will be no chance of Shaiqa leaving this “relationship” of her own free will. But the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, could potentially change things for Shaiqa and the many other girls and women in Afghanistan being persecuted on the basis of their gender. It is known that this persecution may amount to genocide when targeted at particular groups, and in Afghanistan there is a deliberate targeting of Hazara women and girls.

As we have heard, the Genocide Determination Bill would enable vulnerable groups to apply directly to the UK court, thereby offering a legal pathway that would give victims a voice, and perhaps girls such as Shaiqa a chance. In our domestic politics, we now set great store by putting victims and survivors at the heart of our policy-making, so I have one question for the Minister: is it perhaps time to do the same in the international arena? I very much support this Bill, if only—as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, said—as another brick in the wall.