Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:03 pm on 31 March 2009.
Well, in due course. My hon. Friend will know that 2 miles in the Congo can be a long, long way.
In a way, we did that classic thing that politicians do. Arriving on the scene in lovely long-wheelbase Land Rovers, we had the potential to change the situation, but we had to make a judgment. In due course we made the judgment that other people in our circumstances would have made, which was that we should move the woman, but that would have disturbed many aspects of how local people were being treated with those limited resources. The point was that that woman expecting a breech birth could have been quite readily dealt with here in the UK, but she was simply going to die, because there was nothing that could be done for her there. As it was, she did not die, but many other women in her situation would have done.
What I want to talk about this evening, if I can, in the minutes left—a fairly generous number are left, actually, so I will wax slightly rhapsodic—is violence. I go about my constituency occasionally with the cops on a Friday or Saturday night. We see a bit of violence in the streets and recognise where it comes from, what is happening and who the bad guys are—who has been caught up in things because they have drunk too much and so on. All the incidents involve men, and the violence is mainly between them. I am also aware, as are all Members of this House, that behind the scenes in people's homes, violence is being inflicted against women. There is a fabulous women's aid organisation in Scotland, as indeed there is fabulous women's aid provision across the UK. Such violence is a more hidden thing. In a privileged position and with a certain lifestyle, as it were, I do not see anything of it, but many people do. It is a hidden thing, but it exists.
It occurs to me—psychoanalytically, I might be miles off on this—that when I go and talk to young men in the Congo who have been involved in astonishing acts of violence against women there, they show traits similar to those of the young men involved in the much lower-level stuff going on in my own constituency. In such an area, however, there is a kind of civilising influence and a series of constraints in the law—there is a legal system and the cops are going about. All sorts of things are civilising influences, such as families, including extended families and so forth. Such an influence is brought to bear on many people—it does not apply to everyone—who get involved in violence, particularly violence against women early in their lives. They can change their ways, but some people do not and such behaviour continues throughout their lives.
When we look at the Congo, what we kind of see, in a bad way, is a Platonic ideal of violence against women. It is completely unmitigated by any mediating institution or mediating experience, and it can be the most brutal thing imaginable on the planet. When we look at the Congo in context, as DFID has to do, it is with the realisation that all sorts of countries in the world need our help and could do with our assistance—the collective assistance of the international community. The best way to look at the situation, however, is through this very easily understandable link between the kind of violence exerted against women in our constituencies at a certain level, and the astonishing dehumanising violence exerted against women in the Congo.
I have just read the complete works—they are not a big bunch; there are about 10 books—of Cormac McCarthy, a great writer. It is boysy stuff; there is a bit of violence and a bit of lovely stuff. He is a fantastic writer, as I have said. There is a scene in "Blood Meridian", which is an especially boysy book—a bit cowboy-ish, if I can put it that way. This scene occurred to me as I was preparing for tonight's debate. A young boy called "the kid" is being recruited into a kind of militia. It does not have any legal status or legal authority. It is a militia formed of a brutal bunch of guys who go about in 1849 taking what they want and what they can. They have got enough power and enough resource; in a way, they are beggars in the land, but they are quite heavily armed.
At one point, the kid is asked by the recruiting sergeant of the militia if he would like to join it. The kid says, "What do they give you?", and the recruiting sergeant says, "Every man gets a horse and his ammunition. I reckon we might find ye some clothes in a case." The kid says, "I ain't got no rifle" and the recruiting sergeant says, "We'll find ye one". The kid says, "What about wages?" and the recruiting sergeant says, "Hellfire, son. You won't need no wages. You get to keep everything you can raise." Essentially, he is saying, "If you've got a horse, some kit and a weapon, you'll be fine; you can take whatever you want from anyone."
That is an almost exact parallel with the situation for young men in parts of the eastern Congo today. Viewed as a human experience for young men—this is certainly not to sanitise the kinds of things that some of them get up to—that is a useful way, to say the least, to understand the way things are for them and for the victims, with the lack of any kind of justice or legal system in the eastern Congo. Before moving on to issues such as health or education, we should start by trying to establish a coherent justice system. Lord Mance, who is a member of the all-party group and an Appeal Court judge, has compiled a fantastic report of which the Government have taken note. I hope it will play a part in helping to create an effective justice system in the Congo in the coming years.
It also behoves us to look carefully at what articulate and able individuals in the UK can do to give the Government more power in saying, "Look, we want to spend extra cash on these difficult places." As I said at the beginning of my wee speech, the reality nowadays is that if we say we want to spend an extra £100 million on the Congo, people will often say, "Hang on, but all these people in our country have just lost their jobs and charity begins at home." People are decent, but they very often look after their own first, and we can all understand that.
There is an initiative at present that extends from an initiative my hon. Friend the Minister will have heard about. It is called V-Day and it essentially comes out of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues", which is played all over the world to great effect, including in the Congo. V-Day is focusing on the Congo for the next five years, which is a significant period for such an important campaign that operates all over the world. V-Day is headed in the US by Jane Fonda, and in the UK Lynn Franks and Gail Rebuck are leading lights, and Tamsin Larby organises many of its activities. They currently have a campaign that is designed to enhance the facilities of Panzi hospital in Bukavu. The hopsital is led by Dr. Denis Mukwege, as my hon. Friend the Minister knows. Many of us have met Dr. Mukwege, an inspiring character who travelled around the US recently raising cash for the "City of joy" project. The campaign is essentially aimed at both the treatment of the women who find their way to the hospital and other places like it, and also their rehabilitation. It is entirely focused on the gender issue because that offers the best political perspective, and it is where the greatest need is.
Once a justice system and the rule of law is established, or progress is made towards that, the next thing to deal with is health. In terms of women who are the victims of violence in the Congo, all these strands come together, because until we start to deal with the way in which men instinctually behave towards women—because they can and they are not subject to the educational learning influences that we in the west are—we will essentially get nowhere.
In asking my hon. Friend to say what he can about these matters, I want to conclude with three quick points. There is a great demand for all public resources throughout the world at present. A lot of stuff is going on, and a lot is taking place in the Congo involving many different NGOs. There seems to be scope to harmonise some of the efforts, as there is some duplication of effort by Governments, NGOs and so forth, and NGOs are open to that argument. It is also worth mentioning Lord Mance's important report on justice and the rule of law in the Congo. It is very well written, and it is a profoundly important document. Most important of all is the campaign by V-Day UK to help the City of Joy project. It is going to raise $1 million or £1 million—I am not sure which. It will be helped by UNICEF. I have visited the site and I know that the Department for International Development has contributed to it. Can my hon. Friend say that it will keep a close watch on the project in the coming months? There are many other things going on in the world and in the Congo, but it is a profoundly important project where we will actually see results. DFID is a great force for good in the Congo, and I believe that V-Day UK is also a great source of inspiration and a great force for good in the Congo.