Violence against Women and Girls (Sustainable Development Goals)

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) on bringing the debate to the House today. He said, rightly, that we should be listening, and raising our voice. I want to highlight in the UK Parliament the continuing plight of the Nigerian female students abducted by Boko Haram. I want to talk briefly about the specificity of the crime, which is worth narrating, and, more broadly, about violence against girls, in particular in education.

Simon Schama, the historian, wrote well when he stated:

“Education, the idea of teaching our children something other than the parroting of sacred texts, has become a target.”

That is not only aimed at girls, but they are a particular focus for radical Islamists.

On the night of 14 to 15 April 2014, 276 female students were kidnapped from the government secondary school in the town of Chibok in Borno state, Nigeria. Responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by Boko Haram, an extremist and terrorist organisation based in north-eastern Nigeria. Over the next few months, 57 of the schoolgirls managed to escape, but the 219 remaining girls are still missing and have now been away from their families for 744 days, subjected to God knows what at the hands of the terrorists. On 14 April this year, a video was obtained showing 15 of the hostages in black robes. It was the first time they had been seen since May 2014. It is widely believed that the girls, who have forcefully been denied their education, are being held as a negotiating tool.

The wonderfully brave and inspirational Malala Yousafzai, who fled the Taliban in Pakistan, which wanted to deny her an education, came to learn in the great city of Birmingham. She wrote an open letter to the parents of the missing Nigerian girls on the second anniversary of their kidnapping:

“I write this letter with a heavy heart, knowing you have endured another year separated from your daughters…As I did last year, I call on President Buhari of Nigeria—and everyone who can help rescue the Chibok girls—to act now...Parents, thank you for having the courage to send your daughters to school. My dream is that one day they will come home, finish their education and choose their futures for themselves.”

I congratulate the Minister on his joint statement with the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), on the two-year anniversary of the kidnapping of the girls. I urge him to ensure that, when we are, rightly, involved in bilateral aid for Nigeria, we impress on the Nigerians the need to use their military and intelligence to rescue the girls. Concerns have been expressed, in particular by United States officials, that the President is more focused on fighting political opponents than on fighting Boko Haram.

Will the Minister tell us what our Government are doing to ensure that the Nigerian Government focus on securing the release of the Chibok girls? Will he call on the Government of Nigeria to release the report of the investigation panel into the abduction of the Chibok girls? Will he also ensure that the British Government step up support for the Safe Schools initiative in Nigeria, set up in the wake of the Chibok kidnappings by a coalition of inspired Nigerian business leaders working with the UN special envoy for global education, Gordon Brown, the Global Business Coalition for Education and A World at School?

The issue does not affect girls only. We have seen assaults on education by radical Islamist forces with a fear of enlightenment, autonomy and learning—a rancid assault on education and reading—which began with the Beslan school siege, when hundreds of young boys and girls were slaughtered by radical Islamists; we saw it in the assault on the school in Peshawar, Pakistan, and the butchering of young boys who wanted to learn; and we have seen it with the Chibok girls.

My message is that the UK Parliament has not forgotten the 219 missing girls. As parliamentarians, we want to give our full support to UK Ministers pressing the Nigerian Government to do everything that they can to secure the girls’ release, so that they may fulfil their rights under the United Nations to an education and to autonomy.