Middle East: Situation of Women

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this very important debate. The position of women in the Middle East is a constant source of concern for many of us. At first, I thought that the so-called Arab spring was good news for women in those countries but, sadly, the effects are not proving universally beneficial.

Women played a great role in many countries’ demonstrations and protests. As we have heard, they were not afraid to be out on the streets with their men, and they displayed even greater courage than our own sisters in the suffragette movement did at the beginning of the last century. In fact, it is not very long since women in this country had few rights.

The Arab spring started in Tunisia and spread quickly. The leaders of Egypt, Libya and Yemen were overthrown. The protests in Syria have led to a tragic civil war in that most beautiful country. Before the Arab uprisings, women enjoyed some rights—Islam did not mean necessarily that women were oppressed. Although not strictly an Arab country—and I have to put in a plug here—Iran was and is quite remarkable in its encouragement of women’s education and their freedom to use contraception. Iran is often quoted in family planning circles for its amazing 1.9 fertility rate. That is less than the replacement level and it means that women are having fewer children.

Family planning, despite the ayatollahs, is thriving in Islamic Iran. In some countries where Islamists predominantly led the uprisings, there has been a falling back for women’s rights and freedom, but not in Iran. It was beginning to happen in Egypt under the Morsi presidency, where women’s rights were being talked about. However, that was a tragedy for Egypt because, together with other restrictions that we have heard about, it gave a cause célèbre for a coup by the army, which I have to say should have been condemned by our Government. Whether we like them or not, the way for democratically elected Governments in the Middle East—the Hamas-led Government in Palestine was another example in 2006—to be removed is at the ballot box, not at the point of a gun. I do not like the coalition Government very much, as noble Lords may have noticed, but we have to wait until they are dispatched, or not, at the next election. We lose all credibility if we preach democracy and then refuse to recognise the decision of the electorate in other countries.

I want to make a special plea for our Government to recognise what has been going on in Bahrain since the Arab uprisings and to recognise the treatment of women there in particular. Hundreds of women have been sacked for participating in pro-democracy demonstrations, and even those who got their jobs back have had to give up their trade union membership and employment rights. They cannot vote or participate in any way with the political process there. Women have been arrested in their homes in the middle of the night; they have been tortured and sexually abused; and some have gone on hunger strike.

A teacher who led a protest march—I have the details—was arrested, tortured, sentenced and refused permission to work again. A young mother and activist—sick with cancer, as it happened—was made to stand in a doorway while she was sexually abused, all for wearing a political T-shirt. A heavily pregnant woman was jailed with no charge because she objected to her husband’s arrest at a checkpoint. At least 13 women have died in Bahrain, with no one being held accountable.

There are many other examples—I have a long list—and the men have suffered too, but this is a country that we are friends with. It is our ally and supplier of oil, and we have done nothing about these abuses during the uprisings in Bahrain. We should be ashamed. Sooner or later, this will all come back to haunt us.

Finally, there is some good news. Over the past 10 years, a quiet revolution has been going on in the Middle East. Health services and education have improved in most countries, although sadly not in Yemen. Iraq had very fine health services but they are subject to great strain at the moment. Gender equality has been achieved in education in most Middle Eastern countries, although, as we have heard, opportunities afterwards are still very limited. Maternal mortality has dropped dramatically, although again, not in Yemen. In Yemen 110 women per 100,000 still lose their lives in childbirth, which is very high indeed, but in other countries the rate has come down and the most remarkable thing of all is that over the past 20 years women have been following the example of their sisters in Iran and accessing family planning to limit their families.

The Arab spring, we are told, was led by the explosion in the number of young people wanting a better, different life. The women want a better, different life but a researcher in the USA, Professor Eberstadt, calls it the “youth quake”, which I rather like. However, the drop in family size all over Middle Eastern countries will balance that out eventually and reap a huge benefit for women. Later marriage, which is also occurring, and fewer babies mean better health for women, a longer time in education, a better family income as mothers join the workforce and, I hope, more time to forge their way into the constipated—if noble Lords will excuse the medical term—male politics all over the Middle East. In the future we can expect a “women quake” and good luck to them. We will be here, ready to help.