Asked by: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what steps his Department is taking to support Sudanese Christians.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
We will provide £89 million to support Sudan this year, mostly for humanitarian assistance. Exact budgets have not yet been allocated, but this will include support to protection activities for vulnerable people affected by the conflict. UK support will be providing nutrition, safe drinking water, medical care and shelter, as well as supporting protection services for those affected by Gender Based Violence. The UK funds and supports the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Sudan (OHCHR), a UN body that plays a crucial role in monitoring and reporting on human rights violations including of any particular religious group.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps his Department is taking to provide support for human rights to (a) people in, (b) aid agencies and (c) human rights organisations working in Eswatini.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK works to promote respect for human rights around the world, including in Eswatini. The British Government supports the Swazi people indirectly through programmes delivered by UN agencies (including UNICEF, UNFPA and WFP), their implementing partners and the Global Fund, as well as through advocacy and engagement with local Human Rights Defenders and state authorities. The British High Commission also provides project support to local NGOs and CSOs working on key human rights issues such as gender-based violence, freedom of expression and the rights of women and girls.
Asked by: Baroness Helic (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports by UN experts on 19 February of “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations” against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and the West Bank by Israel Defence Forces; and whether they have offered practical support for investigating these alleged crimes, and for caring for survivors and witnesses.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK condemns human rights abuses and sexual violence unequivocally and without exception. As I [Lord Ahmad] said to the UN Security Council during the 11 March debate following the release of Special Representative Pramila Patten's report, it is vital that all reports of sexual violence are fully investigated to ensure justice for all victims and survivors and perpetrators are held to account.
The FCDO continues to closely monitor the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and stands ready to further utilise our Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) expertise and tools to ensure victims and survivors of CRSV, both Israeli and Palestinian, receive the holistic and survivor-centred support they need.
Through our PSVI programmes and dedicated funding totalling £60 million since 2012, we are leading work internationally to prevent conflict-related sexual violence and strengthen justice and support for all survivors.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure swift justice for victims of violence against women and girls.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Government is taking concerted action to ensure swift justice for victims of VAWG.
This includes delivering the end-to-end Rape Review Action Plan to improve the justice system’s response to adult rape, which has seen Crown Court receipts more than double since 2019.
The Department has also been increasing capacity in the Crown Court, including delivering over 107,000 additional sitting days in Crown Courts; opening two permanent ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; increasing criminal legal aid spending by £141 million per year; investing over £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of court buildings; and investing further in judicial recruitment and retention.
Further to this, we are doing more than ever to ensure victims receive the support they need, including quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, whether his Department is taking steps through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative to help support Ukrainian officials to investigate alleged acts of sexual violence by Russian forces since 2022.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The UK is working with Ukrainian authorities to hold those responsible for gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, in Ukraine to account. The UK has committed up to £6.2 million to enhance Ukraine's domestic capacity for war crimes investigations and to help embed international guidelines and best practice into the work of Ukrainian prosecutors and investigators, including on survivor-centred approaches. This assistance has been largely delivered through projects via the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group for Ukraine, established with the US and EU, and deployments of UK experts, including the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) Team of Experts.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are providing to assist women and girls subjected to sexual violence in Darfur in Sudan.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Since the outbreak of conflict in April 2023, there has been a significant escalation of gender-based violence (GBV) in Sudan. The UK has pivoted our programme delivery to focus on GBV prevention, and protection and care for rape survivors. We have also integrated consideration of conflict-related sexual violence into the humanitarian system, making use of Women's Centres, mobile clinics and internally displaced persons' gathering points, for community engagement and service provision. In 2023, UK support provided for the delivery of 83,399 consultations offering sexual and reproductive health services, and delivered mental health and psychological support to over 104,225 people.
Asked by: Baroness Helic (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of efforts since the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in November 2022 to achieve justice and accountability for conflict-related sexual violence in Tigray, and what support they are providing to those efforts.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is committed to preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence in Ethiopia. We have consistently called for an end to the appalling gender-based violence committed across Ethiopia, including sexual violence, particularly during the Tigray conflict. We therefore welcome the recent agreement to implement a comprehensive national Transitional Justice policy aimed at accountability, redress for victims, reconciliation, and healing. The UK has called for the perpetrators to be held to account and the importance of a victim-centered, gender-sensitive approach. We will work with the Ethiopian Government and civil society in their efforts to hold perpetrators to account, including building the capacity of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission through the UK's Human Rights and Peacebuilding programme (HARP).
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's policy paper entitled Tackling violence against women and girls strategy, published on 21 July 2021, what progress his Department has made on ensuring support is provided to survivors of gender-based violence.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
We have completed or closed over half of all cross-government commitments in the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy (2021) and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan (2022).
This includes:
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what support his Department provides for the survivors of rape and sexual abuse by Arab militias in West Darfur.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Since the outbreak of conflict in April 2023, there has been a significant escalation of gender-based violence (GBV) in Sudan. The UK has pivoted our programme delivery to focus on GBV prevention, and protection and care for rape survivors. We have also integrated specific measures to address conflict-related sexual violence into the humanitarian system, making use of Women's Centres, mobile clinics and internally displaced person's gathering points, for community engagement and service provision. In 2023, over 83,399 consultation providing sexual and reproductive health services were delivered, over 104,225 people were given mental health and psychological support, and over 9,000 people benefitted from risk mitigation and response services.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reform the criminal justice system to help tackle violence against women and girls.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
This Government has introduced a comprehensive legislative framework to prevent violence against women, including our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
We have pioneered the creation of new offences including coercive control, non-fatal strangulation and intimate image abuse; more than doubled the number of adult rape cases reaching court compared to when we commissioned our End-to-End Rape Review; and made sure that sentences for adult rape are almost 40% longer than they were in 2010.
And through our Sentencing Bill, we will ensure that rapists and serious sexual offenders spend the entirety of their custodial sentence behind bars, without possibility of parole.