Fiona Hodgson: Pitched from dreams of University to the squalor of a refugee camp

Fiona Hodgson is a former President of the National Convention.  She visited Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, with Oxfam.

Talking to women refugees and others in Lebanon last month, it is clear that urgent help is needed now as the enormous numbers of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria threaten to destabilize the region.

We had gone to talk to the women refugees there, because conflict affects men and women differently.   Too often war impacts worse on the women, and time and again in the aftermath they are not consulted and their needs are overlooked.

Although 424,000 refugees have registered in Lebanon, many estimate that the true figure is already a million.  Even before this crisis, Lebanon already had over 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in permanent camps.  Being a small country this means that the official number of refugees in Lebanon is now equivalent to nearly 10% of its population, with more streaming in every day.

The Lebanese haven’t set up conventional camps, partly because of this the majority of refugees live in informal settlements, rented housing or, where they can, with the poorer host communities who can ill afford to help them.

Lebanon is the most religiously mixed country of the Middle East, maintaining a delicate balance between Sunni, Shia, Christian, Druze and others. with political office being allocated between them. Any influx thus potentially poses a threat to the religious equilibrium of the country, which is why, I understand, there has been no chance of integration for the Palestinians.

All these refugees are shocked and traumatized.  The women have the extra burden of keeping a family together in very tough conditions, and are experiencing harassment and increased risks of violence in refugee communities. The men feel angry and anxious, and this contributes to rising levels of domestic violence.

Some of the refugees from Syria are Palestinians and they flee to the Palestinian camps, such as Shatila, that we visited in Beirut. This intolerably overcrowded, urban ghetto has recently received 600 families from Syria, and many of the families have more relatives following. Accommodation is prohibitively expensive and the conditions shocking.  Twenty people per room is common, cooking where they are sleeping, with insects, lack of privacy and one lavatory per six or seven households.

The women we met there told us their heart-rending stories. Dalal, a recent arrival from Syria, has a 16-year-old son suffering from shrapnel head wounds. She borrowed taxi money to take him to hospital but was unable to pay for the needed operations.  Rana, a young woman, has reluctantly had to marry off her 16-year-old daughter because she could not afford to pay for her food.   Manal, a 19-year-old girl who dreamed of going to university, cried as she told us “Everything is gone, we have no rights here”.

In the Bekaa Valley, home to an estimated 300,000 refugees already, we visited Al Fayda, an informal tented camp. On a cold rainy day the sight of a young mother huddled with her seven barefoot children in one small tent was pitiful. Eva, an 11-year-old girl, told us that food was most needed as she hadn’t eaten that day. Another mother with a baby asked if we had a doctor amongst us – her baby was very sick and there was no medical care. Water is inadequate, and the outbreaks of scabies and diahorrea are impossible to contain. With the heat of the coming summer months comes the threat of cholera.

This crisis is now spiralling and although the UN has appealed for $1.5 billion to help this crisis, only just over half the money has come in.   So money is urgently needed to enable our aid agencies to deliver vital humanitarian support on the ground.

The longer the fighting continues, the worse the situation is going to be, both in Syria and in the neighbouring countries such as Lebanon. It is therefore imperative that the UN Security Council uses all its influence to end this conflict as soon as possible and, together with the international community, helps to find a long term political solution.   And in doing so, I hope they will remember to consult the women!

Meanwhile, the best that we can do is to contribute to our aid agencies so that they can ease conditions on the ground for those who have managed to escape.

Fiona Hodgson: Sexual violence has become a weapon of war, reaching unimaginable scales

Fiona Hodgson is the Vice-Chairman (voluntary) of the Conservative Policy Forum (CPF), a national group chaired by Oliver Letwin MP that gives its members the opportunity to discuss the major policy challenges facing Britain today. Over the coming months she and other members of the voluntary team will be writing a regular post for ConservativeHome.

The last week has brought fresh horrors in Syria, where appalling brutality continues to rage unabated.   One of the less reported aspects of this terrible civil war is the rampant sexual violence that is taking place there, only known about because of the shocking number of refugees who are reporting having been raped.

This highlights why the groundbreaking Initiative to Prevent Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post Conflict Countries, launched by our Foreign Secretary with Angelina Jolie last May, is so vitally important and is so desperately needed.  This Initiative tackles a war crime that everyone has been silent about for far too long.   Sexual violence has become so endemic in conflict that in trying to turn back this tide, William Hague draws cultural parallels with the ending of slavery and describes shattering the culture of impunity for those who use rape as a weapon of war as the next great global challenge of our generation.

In discussing this Initiative I have sometimes heard people comment that ‘women have always been raped in war throughout the ages’ -  as though this somehow makes it OK!  Well the first myth to bust is that sexual violence doesn’t just happen to women and girls, but it happens to men and boys too - an even more hidden and taboo subject .

Over the last 50 years the nature of war has changed– no longer are wars fought by two armies meeting on a battlefield.   Today 70% of people killed in wars are civilians.

Fiona Hodgson: The Conservative Policy Forum will be at Conference and wants to hear members' views

Fiona Hodgson is the Vice-Chairman (voluntary) of the Conservative Policy Forum (CPF), a national group chaired by Oliver Letwin MP that gives its members the opportunity to discuss the major policy challenges facing Britain today. Over the coming months she and other members of the voluntary team will be writing a regular post for ConservativeHome.

"Join the Conversation" has become the CPF catchphrase, neatly encapsulating the new Conservative Policy Forum. Since its relaunch in early January 2011, the CPF has developed to provide an effective and responsive mechanism for the Conservative Party to listen to its membership and beyond. People join political parties because they are interested in policy and this is reflected in the flowering of CPF groups across the United Kingdom.

When I am out and about, people sometimes say that they are concerned we may simply be "window dressing" and that the Party is not really interested in hearing from the grassroots. Let me assure any cynical readers that that is far from the truth. There is a well-resourced team in the Conservative Research Department, who have been established to ensure that all your views reach the ears of Oliver Letwin, the Party Co-Chairmen and the relevant Minister, as well as circulating their responses back to all the groups.

This year’s Party Conference programme builds upon last year’s successful CPF events, offering an extensive programme that will give members many opportunities to participate. The programme kicks off on Sunday night with the Annual Lecture, revived by huge demand, and delivered this year by Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s Enterprise Advisor; and last year’s popular "CPF in Conversation" again sees Oliver Letwin, our CPF Chairman, putting your questions to a panel of Ministers and PPSs – James Brokenshire MP, Martin Callanan MEP, Amber Rudd MP, Harriett Baldwin MP and Gavin Barwell MP.

Fiona Hodgson: Our two Party Chairmen are doing a difficult job and they are doing it well

Fiona Hodgson was President of the National Conservative Convention until last month.

During the last few days the media frenzy around party funding has produced many column inches. One of the worst aspects of all this is that it has resulted in some really vicious articles with truth and accuracy being sacrificed along the way. As somebody who has been involved in the voluntary party for the past 20 years I would like to add a few points to the debate.

Financing of political parties is clearly a contentious issue and whilst the Party Treasurers get much attention, sometimes in unwanted ways, the crucial role the voluntary party plays in helping with this is usually overlooked and somewhat taken for granted. Across the country it is the volunteers who painstakingly raise the money to run the local Party Associations - through membership and fundraising events of various kinds - the ubiquitous raffles, the wine and cheese parties, the dinners. These are hard work and pull in a great deal of money.

A view has been expressed by some that there is an absence of what has been described as a 'proper' Tory Party Chairman. I am not in agreement with that view at all. Roles in any 'living' organisation naturally change and evolve. Having been on the Board of the Party for the three years has meant that I have worked closely with our Co-Chairmen. From my volunteer stance I think that the splitting of the role of the Party Chairman has worked well because the job naturally has two parts. In the past there have sometimes been Party Chairmen who are good at one bit, but not so good at the other, which has caused problems.

Conservative Friends of International Development: We can be proud of Britain’s role in leading the international fight against extreme poverty

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington is Chair of Conservative Friends of International Development (CFID), Mark Simmonds is MP for Boston and Skegness (Deputy Chair of CFID) and Fiona Hodgson, former president National Convention and a Patron of CFID. Follow CFID on Twitter.

We launched Conservative Friends of International Development last year at a packed event at conference. In the run-up to the 2012 Budget on 21^st March, our hundreds of supporters have been telling us again and again: our Party should maintain its commitment to international development because it is a daily demonstration of our Conservative values.

One of our key purposes as a group is to explain to all voters why, whatever the economic climate, we should aim to ‘encourage enterprise, opportunity and aspiration for every family, no matter where they live.’  To those who question the value of overseas aid, we point out that supporting projects that help the world’s poorest lift themselves out of poverty makes sense, especially in an increasingly interconnected world. It is not only morally the right thing to do - it acts as an investment for our future prosperity.

And international development is about more than our economic and national interest: the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, has made clear this Government’s commitment to transparency and value for money. Foreign aid is a hand up, not a hand out, and an increasing focus of our aid is on enterprise and economic development. It is crucial that not a penny is siphoned off into corrupt pockets, but we can see that international development, properly targeted and properly done, is true to who we are and what we stand for as a Party.

Fiona Hodgson: Women's rights in Afghanistan are not negotiable

Fiona Hodgson is President of the National Conservative Convention and Chair of the Advisory Group of GAPS (Gender Action for Peace and Security)

“Make sure that there is someone to listen to our voices, to bring to the international community so that no-one forgets us,” implored one of the women I met in Kabul in June. “We cannot trust our government – we look to the international community”.

In 2001, when the UK government and its allies launched the military intervention to oust the Taliban, they pledged to advance women’s rights. So why, ten years later, as ninety delegations from around the world are heading to Bonn for an international conference on the future of Afghanistan, are Afghan women afraid? “I am really worried about Karzai's decisions. If he wants to talk to the Taliban, how can he guarantee our rights?” e-mailed an Afghan women MP to me two weeks ago. Most Afghan women with whom I spoke on my visit echoed these sentiments. They all had enormous concerns about how the transition discussions that are taking place will impact on them: of 1,000 women in Afghanistan surveyed recently, 86% are worried about a return to Taliban style government.

Much has been documented about how terrible life was for women under the Taliban. Women could not go to school, access to healthcare was near impossible, and they could not go out of the house without being accompanied by a male relation, all reflected in the Afghan saying that “A woman’s place is in the home or the grave.” Serious violations of the rights of girls and women continue in areas under Taliban control today and more generally across Afghanistan, women continue to face discrimination and violence. It is considered to be one of the worst places in the world to be a woman where 1 in 11 women die from mostly preventable pregnancy related causes, 1 in 5 children die by the age of 5 and an estimated 87% of women suffer from domestic abuse. Women who are raped may be prosecuted for sex outside marriage and imprisoned, whilst only a couple of weeks ago a mother and her daughter were stoned and shot dead due to accusations of ‘moral deviation and adultery’.

Fiona Hodgson is President of the National Conservative Convention and Chair of the Advisory Group of GAPS (Gender Action for Peace and Security)

“Make sure that there is someone to listen to our voices, to bring to the international community so that no-one forgets us,” implored one of the women I met in Kabul in June. “We cannot trust our government – we look to the international community”.

In 2001, when the UK government and its allies launched the military intervention to oust the Taliban, they pledged to advance women’s rights. So why, ten years later, as ninety delegations from around the world are heading to Bonn for an international conference on the future of Afghanistan, are Afghan women afraid? “I am really worried about Karzai's decisions. If he wants to talk to the Taliban, how can he guarantee our rights?” e-mailed an Afghan women MP to me two weeks ago. Most Afghan women with whom I spoke on my visit echoed these sentiments. They all had enormous concerns about how the transition discussions that are taking place will impact on them: of 1,000 women in Afghanistan surveyed recently, 86% are worried about a return to Taliban style government.

Much has been documented about how terrible life was for women under the Taliban. Women could not go to school, access to healthcare was near impossible, and they could not go out of the house without being accompanied by a male relation, all reflected in the Afghan saying that “A woman’s place is in the home or the grave.” Serious violations of the rights of girls and women continue in areas under Taliban control today and more generally across Afghanistan, women continue to face discrimination and violence. It is considered to be one of the worst places in the world to be a woman where 1 in 11 women die from mostly preventable pregnancy related causes, 1 in 5 children die by the age of 5 and an estimated 87% of women suffer from domestic abuse. Women who are raped may be prosecuted for sex outside marriage and imprisoned, whilst only a couple of weeks ago a mother and her daughter were stoned and shot dead due to accusations of ‘moral deviation and adultery’.

Fiona Hodgson: The Conservative grassroots is getting more of a say in the Party - as Manchester 2011 showed

Fiona Hodgson is President of the National Conservative Convention and chaired this year’s Conservative Party Conference.   

Now that the dust has settled on Party Conference, I want to take this opportunity to look back at Manchester 2011 and set the record straight on one or two points. In the week that has passed since David Cameron’s speech, a lot has been written about the role of party members at Conference. As President of the National Convention and Conference Chairman, I don’t feel it would be right to let these pass without making some comment and – in some cases putting forward another point of view.

First, let me address head on the notion that Manchester 2011 was a "Conference without members". This is simply untrue. Not only did Conservative Party members form the single largest group at Conference, but over the last six years the number of Party Members attending Conferences have increased significantly – reaching a peak at Birmingham last year. Yes, this year the numbers of members were slightly down on 2010 – but overall, the numbers have increased by around a third since David Cameron became Leader and there were almost 1,000 more members at Manchester 2011 than Blackpool 2005.

Fiona Hodgson: We must help the women of Afghanistan attain the equality promised for them in their constitution

Fiona Hodgson is a former Chairman of the Conservative Women's Organisation and is Vice President of the National Conservative Convention.

Afghanistan is never out of the news and today is no exception after yesterday's conference in London. The situation there causes us all much concern. There is no doubt that our troops are doing a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances and it is painful to have lost so many of our servicemen – over 100 killed last year alone and many more critically injured.

However, thoughts of Afghanistan also lead me to think about the women there and what a terribly harsh existence it is for so many of them. “Afghanistan is one of the most harrowing places in the world to be a woman,” writes Barbara Stocking, the Chief Executive of Oxfam, in The Female Face of Afghanistan.

This publication was launched on International Human Rights Day on 10th December at an event organised by Tony Baldry MP and the Conservative Human Rights Commission and you can read more about it (and download it) on their website. It is a collection of writings and the authors range from Afghan politicians to schoolgirls writing in secret and they also include distinguished authors, former diplomats, NGOs and others. In putting this report together, the aim was not only to highlight the parlous position of women in Afghanistan but also to offer some recommendations of ways forward that might help them.   

Some of the statistics are truly terrible. Of course it is hard to get accurate numbers – I don’t think anyone is even sure of the figure of the total population there now. However, it is estimated that 87% women suffer from domestic violence and over 60% of marriages are forced. It has one of the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the world, with a woman dying every 27 minutes from a pregnancy-related cause and one in four children not reaching their fifth birthday. In Kabul alone there are around 70,000 widows, many unable to support themselves and nearly all of the 37,000 street children there are fatherless. Many millions of pounds, dollars and euros are being sent there in aid – but there is concern that the aid rarely reaches the most needy people at the grassroots, for whom it was sent.

Fiona Hodgson is a former Chairman of the Conservative Women's Organisation and is Vice President of the National Conservative Convention.

Afghanistan is never out of the news and today is no exception after yesterday's conference in London. The situation there causes us all much concern. There is no doubt that our troops are doing a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances and it is painful to have lost so many of our servicemen – over 100 killed last year alone and many more critically injured.

However, thoughts of Afghanistan also lead me to think about the women there and what a terribly harsh existence it is for so many of them. “Afghanistan is one of the most harrowing places in the world to be a woman,” writes Barbara Stocking, the Chief Executive of Oxfam, in The Female Face of Afghanistan.

This publication was launched on International Human Rights Day on 10th December at an event organised by Tony Baldry MP and the Conservative Human Rights Commission and you can read more about it (and download it) on their website. It is a collection of writings and the authors range from Afghan politicians to schoolgirls writing in secret and they also include distinguished authors, former diplomats, NGOs and others. In putting this report together, the aim was not only to highlight the parlous position of women in Afghanistan but also to offer some recommendations of ways forward that might help them.   

Some of the statistics are truly terrible. Of course it is hard to get accurate numbers – I don’t think anyone is even sure of the figure of the total population there now. However, it is estimated that 87% women suffer from domestic violence and over 60% of marriages are forced. It has one of the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the world, with a woman dying every 27 minutes from a pregnancy-related cause and one in four children not reaching their fifth birthday. In Kabul alone there are around 70,000 widows, many unable to support themselves and nearly all of the 37,000 street children there are fatherless. Many millions of pounds, dollars and euros are being sent there in aid – but there is concern that the aid rarely reaches the most needy people at the grassroots, for whom it was sent.

Fiona Hodgson: The international community must not fail Bosnia, and neither should Bosnian leaders be allowed to do so

Fiona Hodgson is a former Chairman of the Conservative Women's Organisation and was elected a Vice President of the National Conservative Convention last month. She reflects here on what she discovered during a trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina earlier this month.

Visiting Bosnia-Herzegovina last week with the NGO Women for Women to view their programmes for women, it became very apparent that, although it is nearly 15 years since the conflict ended there, and the global media spotlight has moved on to other regions, tensions still abound, justice is yet to be done and differences yet to be solved.

As in every theatre of war, women are affected disproportionately to men. In the aftermath many women are left widows, having to struggle to support themselves and to bring up their children on their own. Organisations such as Women for Women offer a lifeline to these women by giving them training in an income generating project and teaching them their rights, thus giving them a means of support and helping them to stand on their own feet.

The horror of the Bosnian war was bought home to us with shocking clarity when we visited the War Memorial at Srebrenica. It was here that the worst massacre since World War II took place in July 1995. Srebrenica had been designated a ‘safe area’ by the UN and about 25,000 Muslims gathered here to be protected from the approaching Serb army. The 313 UN Dutch troops were garrisoned in an old battery factory at Potocari and were quite overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of people, estimated at around 25,000, who came for shelter. Some of the men tried to escape over the mountains to the city of Tuzla and of those many were captured and killed.

Fiona Hodgson and Glyn Strong: We must not let women's rights be eroded again in Afghanistan

Fiona Hodgson is President of the Conservative Women's Organisation and set up the CWO Muslim Group; Glyn Strong is a journalist who has been nominated for an award for her coverage of Afghanistan. Here they call on us not to sit back and allow women's rights to be eroded again in Aghanistan.

The Personal Status of the Shiites Law, recently approved - then apparently referred for review - by President Hamid Karzai, is a law that oppresses women and flies in the face of human rights norms. Unsurprisingly it has sparked international outrage.

While it would be arrogant to make judgements about the customs and practices of other cultures, there are some basic human rights that are considered universal, and the Afghan Constitution accepts them – which makes the bid to pass this law so incomprehensible.

It is hard for ordinary members of the British public to ascertain, or understand the political nuances of what is happening in Afghan politics, but informed sources say the proposed law has now been referred to the Ministry of Justice where it will be reviewed by a committee of legal experts and scholars during the next two months. Representatives from civil society have apparently requested that a woman should be placed on this drafting team and the MOJ have said “they would aim to do so”.  

This ‘family law’ is one that, if enacted, will give men considerable control over women’s lives. As it stands it forbids Shiite women from leaving their homes (“except for "legitimate purposes”), from working or receiving education without their husband’s permission. It legalises marital rape and has other disadvantageous provisions for women relating to marriage, divorce, child custody, remarriage (in the event of a partner’s death), inheritance (women can only inherit moveable effects), and bankruptcy.

Fiona Hodgson: The women of Rwanda

Fiona Hodgson, President of the Conservative Women's Organisation, reflects on her part in the recent visit to Rwanda.

There are no accurate statistics of the Rwandan genocide but it is estimated that around one million people were killed in around one hundred days.  But the genocide also left many hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans.  Many of these will have seen their families brutally killed in front of them and are still suffering from the trauma fourteen years on.

Last year, on Project Umabano, I spent two weeks in Rwanda connecting with women at all levels of society.  Meeting women at grassroots level is very humbling.  Many of them have gone through experiences that could only be considered the stuff of nightmares and have been left with very little, if any, means of support.

There are many NGOs and organisations out here in Rwanda, trying to help these women who are the poorest of the poor.  By forming groups and training women in low-level counselling skills it enables them to support each other and find a collective voice.  They also train them in income generating initiatives.

I was delighted to have the opportunity to return to Rwanda on Project Umabano this year.  I was able to visit more of these organisations, such as the Rwandan Women’s Network, and to hear from them how this type of help has changed their lives.

Not only are the NGOs and charities helping – the Government has been proactive in helping these women too and during the last year has passed a Bill on Violence against Women to highlight this issue.

It is interesting that although from different cultures, women have the same problems.  In nearly every corner of the world women are still seeking economic and social equality and needing protection from violence.

However, there are lessons for us to learn here in Rwanda too.  One of the legacies of the genocide was that it gave women the opportunity to become politically empowered and today they lead the world by having more women in Parliament than any other country (incidentally, Britain trails behind, being ranked at number sixty).

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Other ConservativeHome reviews of Rwanda have been written by Timothy Barnes, Tobias Ellwood, Robert Halfon and Andrew Mitchell.  Also watch the five minute conservatives.tv video on the Rwanda trip.