International Women’s Day

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Tonge, the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, and others have already reminded us that we still have a long way to go. The chilling account from the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, of the behaviour towards women in detention and their children is something this House should address closely. It is not to the credit of the United Kingdom. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and others made clear that we are also making some advances. That is important to lay down. It is not only in Britain but in many other countries—not least developing ones. My point will be brief owing to time but I want to make it strongly. It is a radical and strong point. Cherie Blair said in her memoirs that most women in politics had defined themselves in terms of their relationship to men. The first great wave of women leaders in the developing world over the past 20 years have almost invariably been either the daughters of great leaders—such as Benazir Bhutto or Mrs Gandhi—or their widows—such as Mrs Aquino and almost all the leaders of Bangladesh and of Sri Lanka. These women, remarkable though they have been, have been taken seriously only because of the relationship they had to some leading male. Excitingly, there is now a new kind of women’s leadership developing. It is about that that I want to address my few remarks. Look at the list of countries where 40 per cent or more of the people involved in representative democratic leadership are women. We all know in this House that the list consists of virtually every Scandinavian country—Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark—and some other, rather surprising countries in western Europe about which I have another word or two to say. Every one of those countries with more than 40 per cent representation by women meets the normal criteria of what it is to live a civilised and cohesive life—the rule of law, the acceptance of educational opportunities for women as well as men, objections to violence and a strong emphasis on conflict resolution. We are looking at a new division in the world. It is not the traditional division between the developed and the developing worlds but between those societies that are genuinely balanced between the genders and those subjected to what can only be described as continuing patriarchal power. We can be quite precise about where most of that second group are. They are most of the Arab world, the Maghreb, Russia and central Asia—countries which do not meet the human rights criteria I have laid out. They are still addicted to the old patriarchal power of male attitudes and have not yet accepted that both genders are essential to a civilised and decent society. If you look not at the list of the rate of economic growth but, in our own Library, at the United Nations Human Development Report—the crucial measure of the quality of life and not just the quantity of economic output—in the top 20 countries are all those that have 40 per cent, or near it, female representation in their cabinets and parliaments. That is a staggering difference and one we would be unwise not to take seriously. The patriarchal countries still suffer in economic and social development from their rejection of the contribution that women can make. The United Nations has pointed out that this is one of the most marked distinctions between developing countries that are doing well and those that are not. I remind the House of one striking example of this. In South Africa, every committee engaged in the creation of a new relationship between white and black had on it at least one woman. Nelson Mandela insisted that there was female representation on all those committees from beginning to end and from top to bottom. South Africa is an example of the great contribution that women have made. Another country, Bosnia, is still plagued by extreme conflict and secular prejudice and hatred. In the wisdom of the West, we imposed the Dayton agreement. There was not a single woman representative on that. Absolutely no time was given to the issues of whether there were equal rights for and representation of women. Perhaps most seriously, in a country where rape was deliberately used as a weapon of war, there was no discussion of rape. I beg to put my case. It is a radical case but I believe it to be true.