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Iraq and Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict

May I take this opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend on the leadership that he showed during last week’s conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict? That is a major issue, but it is one that many

people—dare I say it, many men—have avoided addressing. My right hon. Friend deserves congratulation on addressing it. Will he take this opportunity to challenge media commentators who have suggested over the past few days that it is a relatively minor issue compared with the issues of Iraq that we have just been discussing? Does he not agree that, in many ways, they are two sides of the same coin and that the fundamental belief that women are second-class citizens lies at the heart of the use of sexual violence in conflict and at the heart of the beliefs of most of the extreme terrorist organisations?