ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now stonings, hangings and death sentences for what you believe, some of the stories this week about the treatment of women in different countries around the world have been truly shocking of course but what, if anything, could Britain do to change things.  In a moment I’ll speak to International Development Minister, Lynne Featherstone but first let’s hear from the former Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, a very good morning to you both.  Sir Malcolm, we hear these awful stories from Sudan, from Pakistan, from other countries, is the answer in Britain that we just have to say t’was ever thus, can we really influence the way these countries and individuals within these countries act?

MALCOLM RIFKIND:         We’ve got to be realistic about what can be done, which is quite a significant amount.  These events have been happening for decades, probably centuries, the difference now is that we get to know about them very, very quickly and the reason we get to know about them very quickly is partly journalists and news reporters and so forth but also because in some of these countries there are activists, members of the civilian community who are organised to try and prevent for example attacks, rape attacks on women in India, they have formed themselves into a very active group and they know that by getting the international community aware of what is being done, pressure can be put on them.

DM: And the means of transmission out there now, you can get that word out and spread it around the world. 

MALCOLM RIFKIND: You are not just getting the event out, you’re getting visual pictures of it and that makes a dramatic difference.  You have got to make a distinction between acts of barbarism which are actually authorised by a government of a particular country, we have seen some of that in Iran, some of the controversies involving human rights in Iran. You’ve got other issues where the government itself might be very hostile to what is going on but can’t do much about it.  In India they have been trying to get rid of the caste system since 1948 with very limited success in the rural areas.

DM: What about Britain’s position though, the levers that we have?  Of course there is the influence of our international media and expressing things that way, we have a large aid budget though.

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Yes but I would be rather reluctant about that, unless you thought the government of the country concerned was deliberately fostering that human rights abuse.  What you can do however, and it has been done quite effectively, not just by Britain but by a range of international governments, is that the ministers get in touch directly with their counterparts in Khartoum, in whatever capital is concerned and that brings it way up the agenda of the minister in the country concerned. 

DM: Could the aid budget not be used further down the pipeline so to speak, for instance in Sudan where you’ve got a fractured country and different power blocks there, the aid budget is going towards trying to rebuild that society as a whole and in a small part perhaps re-educate more women, things like that. 

MALCOLM RIFKIND: If you are dealing with a country that has a systematic abuse of human rights then you have to ask yourself, should we be providing aid in the first place to such a government but sometimes you get a middling case and some of the aid is actually used to try to help countries introduce new civil society constraints. For example if you’re a government in an African or an Asian country with a poor human rights record in the past but trying to come away from that, you can’t just overnight change the whole culture so you actually have to build what we call civil society, you have to try and develop an independent judicial system, help the newspapers become more able to articulate grievances, train civil servants in what their job is to be neutral as regards the politicians but absolutely on side with regards to the rule of law.

DM: They also have to be tremendously sensitive about cultural and religious practices that are very, very different to our own. 

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Yes, you have to be sensitive about it and you’ve got to be aware what is behind some of these abuses and the language you use has to reflect that fact.  It is tragic and appalling that the rights of women for example still in a large number of countries, they are treated as second class citizens, not just in a symbolic way but in ways that go to the very heart of their human rights. Now these are cultural issues in the rural areas where the bulk of the population often still exist so it is no use being full of indignation, this is unacceptable and that type of language.  You can say that but it won’t actually achieve very much, you have got to work with the governments of those countries if they are trying to help, you have got to actually publicise the issue and accept that you will never get rid of abuse completely except over a generation. 

DM: What about the governments of those countries that are trying to help and they are key allies of the UK, one thinks immediately of Saudi Arabia and places like that, mighty powerful nations that we more or less daren’t say boo to a goose to? 

MALCOLM RIFKIND: Well it is not just Saudi Arabia that has been doing this for very many years, you have a country like Brunei and in every other respect a very agreeable country but it has now introduced Sharia law and that technically could mean people being stoned, people having limbs amputated, all the other horrors that go with that kind of interpretation of Sharia law.  Now the person, the ruler of Brunei is not a brutal man so far as we know, he’s not got that type of reputation, we’ll have to work very patiently and carefully trying to ensure that consistent with the kind of religious society that he wants to create you do not have that kind of, what we would consider barbarism that even in most of the Muslim world is considered unacceptable, certainly in the urban areas and certainly by the governments concerned.    

DM: But on a lesser scale, when it comes to the key allies and this is way down the scale when it comes to the barbarism we’ve been discussing, you’ve got another key ally and key supplier of gas to us, Qatar, and allegedly handing over large amounts of cash to bag the World Cup for 2022.  What do we do about things like that?

MALCOLM RIVKIND: That’s not so much for the British government as such.  If the allegations covered in the press today are even remotely correct, then it must open up the whole question of whether Qatar should indeed host the World Cup.  If there has been that amount of corruption in getting them that extraordinary vote, because to actually have a World Cup in a country that has got a climate which is the most unsuitable in the world for people exerting themselves in a dramatic way, most sensible Qataris come to London during the summer to get away from the heat, not exactly a good reason to have a World Cup there.    

DM: Sir Malcolm, thank you very much indeed and as I say, that issue pales into insignificance and you have given the core issue we’ve talking about.  Let’s bring in Lynne Featherstone now, the International Development Minister.  Did you agree with a lot that Sir Malcolm said there in terms of the analysis?

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE: Yes, I think Sir Malcolm spoke most eloquently and wisely and what he said was exactly the case. 

DM: But is there anything more the UK can do?  We get politicians saying it’s appalling, well of course it’s appalling.

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE: And the British government is, the British government is actually leading particularly in terms of girls and women in the developing world, it’s at the centre of all our policies.  I have to say it is epidemic and endemic and when you get incidents like we’ve seen highlighted in the press, whether it’s the girls in Nigeria, the stonings, the hangings, then everyone jumps up and down but the work that the British government does is day in, day out, on the ground with the people. If you take Sudan, years 2013/14, £42 million and not a penny to the government, £33 million to Darfur where people are fighting, where they are in conflict, it is basically humanitarian aid but we also build for the long term because the ultimate aim is to make places sustainable so it is access to justice for women, it’s training police forces, it’s enabling women to earn money.  They have, as Sir Malcolm says, no voice, no choice, no control over their lives, they are chattels for the most part and it’s on an epidemic scale so the British government works in this direction consistently and persistently as well as making representations at the highest level.

DM: A lot of that is taking place in so-called lands far, far away but there are practices that take place within our own country from people of different countries, from people of different culture and religion which are appalling abuse of women, one thinks of female genital mutilation.  There are still very few prosecutions about thinks like that.

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE: Well as the person who started the campaign in DiFID, based I must say on years of campaigning by Daughters of Eve and Integrate Bristol on female genital mutilation, but you are absolutely right.  We have 20,000 girls at risk in this country and that is because we are intrinsically liked with Africa, where this practice is prevalent and Africa has said we will not take this any longer, 25 countries in Africa have made it illegal, the African Union took a resolution to the United Nations which has banned FGM world-wide and in this country we have seen our first prosecution and you, like your viewers today, will have noticed female genital mutilation going right up the agenda and the Prime Minister is hosting a world conference, it’s called Girl Summit, in July which looks at and will bring experts from across the world to talk about female genital mutilation  and child early enforced marriage. These practices are absolutely intrinsically [inaudible] with the rest of the world. 

DM: I know the Foreign Secretary is very concerned about that issue.  One last question about your own party, the Lib Dems, Lord Renard …

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE:  What about Liberal Democrat’s human rights!

DM: … has he apologised enough to be allowed back into the party?  You could do with his campaigning skills.

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE: Of course we could, he was a very, very great campaigner for the Liberal Democrats.  Listen I do not know the detail, these two sides of this, the women and Lord Renard, have been in talks and mediation through party processes, I think they have both had legitimate grievances if you like against the party who didn’t originally handle this and take it through proper processes.  Now there are proper processes, a pastoral care person, all of those things are now in place.  Both parties have launched appeals against the Webster report and therefore I don’t have the information to comment on that but I hope that everyone comes out of it wiser and better.  I think both parties have been bruised but obviously as a feminist I have to say we do have to stand up for women’s rights.

DM: Okay and wait and see on specific issues, thank you very much indeed Lynne Featherstone and thank you very much once again to Sir Malcolm.