Conflict-affected Countries: Adolescent Girls

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson—my friend, I hope I can say, even if it is not appropriate to call her my noble friend—for securing this debate and congratulate her on leading us off so brilliantly. She shines a light on this subject relentlessly. She did so for many years before she was a Member of your Lordships’ House, and she has used this platform in a formidable way over recent years to raise these vital issues. I am delighted to contribute to the debate that she has managed to secure.

Like the noble Baroness, I should declare my registered interests, which include references to advising in peacebuilding situations, as well as my positions at UNICEF and in other charitable organisations that work in this area. It is partly because of that experience that I am motivated to speak tonight. I remember 10 years ago meeting a young woman in Liberia who had been sold off to one side in the civil war. She was 17 and had a child who was maybe three years old by that point. She was asked by my colleague, in an attempt to turn the conversation to something more positive, what was good about having a child, and she looked us in the eye and said there was nothing good about having this child and there never would be. At 17, that young woman was technically still a child in most countries, yet she was facing a life with a memory and all the other implications that were going to affect her deeply for years to come. I have told your Lordships before about meeting young Saffa in a refugee camp in Iraq. She was strong about her situation and determined to build herself a future, but her life was affected most by the fact that her grades in school had gone down. That was the moment that she burst into tears, showing that education is absolutely vital to these girls.

This is partly about protection and partly about hope and education. In that context, we need to see our work in this area as part of our overall work for the global goals. The global goals include in goal 16 a firm commitment to peace and justice and creating the environment in which development can happen. They also include at their very core a commitment not just to gender equality but to women’s empowerment and defending the interests of women and girls everywhere. If the global goals are driven by the objective of leaving no one behind, surely, as we look around the world, one of the groups most likely to be left behind are adolescent girls in fragile and conflict-affected states. They are more likely to be raped. They are more likely to be forced into child marriage. They are more likely to suffer from FGM—still. They are more likely to miss out on education; for example, in Muslim Mindanao in the southern Philippines, girls are three times more likely to leave school before the end of primary school than in the rest of the Philippines. They are more likely to have significant health issues. Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, has already said, they are more likely to be trafficked. They face multiple issues of violence and abuse but we also know that the evidence and statistics back up the fact that these girls face these issues more often and more severely than adolescent girls elsewhere.

In our overseas development assistance and our policy towards our international work, we should be driven not only by Agenda 2030 but by the aim of leaving no one behind. I am keen to hear from the Minister: what will we see in the UK’s voluntary national review to the UN this summer of our work on the global goals? What will we say about this vital area of supporting adolescent girls in fragile and conflict-affected states? How will we use our influence at the United Nations to ensure that UN work and policy on refugees and internally displaced persons protect and empower girls inside refugee camps? Will we also be willing to continue to take a stand internationally? When people refer to these practices as cultural, religious or driven by armed conflict, will we be willing to take a stand—no matter whether the country in which these incidents take place is a friend or foe—on behalf of these adolescent girls and speak up against those who are turning a blind eye or, in many cases, are the perpetrators?

There is real evidence of the impact that can be made when we get the policies right and the right action is taken, but we need to ensure that there is not just prevention in terms of protection—with the right systems and conditions in place, not just health protection for girls affected by violence in these situations—but that there is justice. Whether it is for the Rohingya in Myanmar, the Yazidis in Iraq or women and adolescent girls elsewhere, we need to ensure that there is justice because justice provides hope that in the future others might not find themselves in the same situation. We need to ensure that we are listening to adolescent girls in all these situations, that we are taking on board what they are saying, but also that we are prioritising the action that is required to ensure that at the end of the day this particular group is not left behind.