Baroness Hodgson of Abinger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Hodgson of Abinger on 2015-11-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they took to ensure that women’s voices were included at the recent meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL in London.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

On 28-29 October, the UK hosted the fourth meeting of the Global Coalition’s Communications Working Group, along with our Coalition Co-Chairs, the United Arab Emirates and the US. Ministers and senior officials from 32 Coalition countries participated. 149 delegates were involved in the meeting over the two days, of whom 43 were women.

The meeting focused on digital communications and what more coalition governments could do, in partnership with civil society and digital industry, to promote positive voices and to ensure those promoting extremism and violent extremism online were not left unchallenged.

The meeting agreed that highlighting women’s voices was a key part of the Coalition’s response to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s propaganda.