(CB):...I am proud that
there are more and more organisations fighting to help widows lead
a better life. These organisations have steadily grown over the
years and, like the Loomba Foundation, they have certainly made
inroads, but they need more assistance from Governments as they
need access to more funds. For instance, Kenya is organising an
event to mark International Widows Day, and the theme is “Skills
Training for Widows—Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals”.
More than 3,000 widows will be in attendance at the Kenyatta
International Convention Centre with the chief guest, the President
of Kenya. We have also received information from many other
countries including Nigeria, Tanzania, Nepal, Bangladesh, Uganda,
Malawi, South Africa, Rwanda, Guatemala, Chile and India, which are
marking International Widows Day to raise awareness of this social
evil and help widows...
(Con):..There are over 40 million widows
in India, in a population of 1 billion.
Widows in Iraq, where I and my AMAR colleagues work, now number 2
million in a population of fewer than 35 million citizens and
refugees. Orphans in Iraq number around 5 million. War brings
widows and makes children orphans...
(Lab)...Fourthly,
one has to help widows secure employment with a kind of
preferential treatment in jobs and higher education. It happens
in India and in other countries. I do not
see why it cannot be generalised. A widow applying for a job
ought to be able to get an extra point, just as the Americans do
when an applicant is black. If widowhood is taken as a factor in
deciding whether someone gets a job—likewise if a woman, after
having become a widow, wants to go to university or college—she
might be given preferential entry. That makes this task much
easier.
Finally, in any society concerned to improve the condition of
women, there has to be a state agency—a government agency that
takes full responsibility for the condition of women and carries
out a kind of “widow impact analysis” to see how government
policies and actions impact on a widow. According to UN Women,
there are 285 million widows in the world today. Half a million
are to be found in Afghanistan. According to the latest report,
which came out in India only two days ago, there are 56
million widows in India—7.4% of the population. Out of 285
million widows in the world, 150 million live in deep poverty,
and 40% of the 187 countries surveyed do not grant women equal
rights. We are talking not about isolated pockets of poverty, but
about systemic groups of millions of human beings in acute
poverty and suffering. That is the problem we ought to be
tackling...
(LD):...I can draw
a parallel with the Srebrenica massacre, one in which tens of
thousands of women are still searching for their husbands and
looking for justice: it is happening in Kashmir. Over the last
three decades, tens of thousands of people, mostly men, have been
killed. Many of them are reported to have been picked up from their
own homes, or from the streets, by the Indian security forces. Some
of them have been released. The bodies of many were found by the
roadsides and tens of thousands are still missing. Wives of those
missing men in Kashmir, known as “half widows”, have been searching
for their husbands in police stations, detention centres and
prisons all over India, without any success.
I am drawing a parallel between Kashmir and Srebrenica because
thousands of mass graves have been identified in Kashmir which
need to be investigated, to find out the identities of those
buried there. According to the Amnesty International report of
May 2008:
“Amnesty International urges the Government of India to launch
urgent investigations into hundreds of unidentified graves
discovered since 2006 in Jammu and Kashmir. The investigation
must be independent, impartial and follow international
standards. The grave sites are believed to contain the remains of
victims of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture
and other abuses”.
In its report of 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights wanted,
“to consider establishing a Commission of Inquiry to conduct a
comprehensive independent international investigation into
allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir… Alleged sites
of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region should be
investigated”.
However, the Indian Government have refused these investigations
any access.
Human Rights Watch, in its report on 14 June 2018, said:
“The Indian government should immediately act on the
recommendations in the first-ever report by the United Nations on
human rights in Kashmir”.
Despite these calls from the international bodies, the Indian
Government refuse to give access to the United Nations for an
independent investigation into these mass graves.
Can I ask the Minister a specific question? If she is unable to
answer it now, I am willing to receive a written reply from her
later. Will the British Government help the United Nations get
access to investigate these human rights abuses, including the
mass graves in Kashmir?
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