Ms Zoe Smith:

It is an honour to be here today. My name is Zoe Smith. I head the advocacy department at Open Doors UK and Ireland. We are part of an international organisation which for 60 years has supported Christians facing persecution. We started in 1955 and now work in over 50 countries throughout the world. We support Christians by supplying Bibles, leadership training, literacy programmes, livelihood support, trauma counselling, orphanages and advocacy services, among other things. We work in close consultation with Christians who experience first-hand the denial of their right to freedom of religious belief under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Every year our research team produces the world watch list, which assesses the 50 countries throughout the world where it is hardest to live as a Christian. The team provides an annual ranking of 1 to 50 and analyses the trends and dynamics of global persecution. Since all committee members have the document I will quickly go through the trends and hopefully get to the end quickly.

The first point I wish to highlight is that more Christians are being persecuted in more countries and more severely than since Open Doors started compiling the world watch list 13 years ago, including in countries where historically it had been safe to be a Christian. This not only restricted to the Middle East. Despite the violence on our television screens this is not even primarily due to increased violence but rather to increased cultural and social pressures squeezing Christians out of society. At issue is the intentional deprivation of fundamental rights on account of one's faith. This is often harder to withstand in the long run than direct violence. Often the visibility of the violence, understandably, attracts all the international attention and policy focus. We recommend that the committee should pay close attention to the legal and cultural pressures on Christians and constitutional sources of persecution, noting early warning signs such as changes in law or jurisprudence, in addition to the violence with a view to formulating effective policy to protect the right to freedom of religion and belief.

Among Christians facing persecution the women of the persecuted church face double discrimination based on their faith and gender. Christian women are often not only of the second gender but also of the second-class religion. Christian women in Egypt often report harassment, verbal abuse and intimidation. In Pakistan and other countries Christian women face kidnapping, forced marriages and forced conversions. One organisation estimates between 100 and 700 Christian women and girls are affected by this each year. Obviously, it is devastating to the communities and families and there is a big shame culture as well. Therefore, getting exact figures on how many girls or women are affected by this is difficult. However, we can see some of the extent of it.

ISIS has further demonstrated this vulnerability by singling out Yazidi Christian women for abuse. Only last week I heard of one Christian woman who escaped ISIS, but she has lost her mind as a result of the repeated rapes and abuse. A nine-year-old Yazidi girl is now seven months pregnant because of the rapes of ISIS. She is unable to cope physically and the doctors fear for her life. These are not isolated instances. Therefore, I call on the committee to explore the value and impact of raising religious freedom as a dimension of women's rights and, when discussing the rights of women, ensure that the religious dimension is not overlooked. In particular, when the Irish Government addresses religious freedom as part of its important role on the UN Human Rights Council, we recommend that this committee advocates the proactive inclusion of female faith group representatives at every instance and works to combat any barriers currently stopping women entering the debate to ensure that gender dimensional persecution is duly considered.

Although it is not the only persecution of Christians, Islamic extremism represents by far the greatest source of persecution of Christians worldwide. In our research, 18 of the top 20 countries listed Islamic extremism as the main source of persecution of Christians and it played a role in 40 of the 50 countries overall. We have already heard about the Middle East, but sub-Saharan Africa is a second epicentre for this trend. We recommend that the committee monitor this and that members keep an eye on that region in particular.

What we term Islamic extremism comes in a variety of guises. There are extremist states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. There are also extremist local governments, such as in north-eastern Nigeria, extremist political movements, like the Muslin Brotherhood in Egypt, extremist violence groups, like ISIS as well as extremist households and individuals, who are effective at clamping down on family members or community members who happen to step out of line and become Christian.

However, Islamic extremism is not the only source of persecution. We have identified eight sources overall. Please ask me to explain these terms later because they contain some jargon. The other seven include religious nationalism, tribal antagonism and denominational protectionism. Religious nationalism is where religion is a symbol of national identity. Tribal antagonism is represented by what we heard about in Vietnam where tribe members try to get their members to stay in the community at all costs. Denominational protectionism is where one church group tries to dominate all other expressions of Christianity. Communist oppression, such as in China, is where the state tries to control the church. Dictatorial paranoia, where dictators seek to dominate every aspect of society, is another source. Secular intolerance seeks to push religion out of society. Organised corruption arises where Christians who often espouse a different way of life are killed with sickening frequency. Please ask about country examples either by way of questions or afterwards and we can provide these for each heading.

Finally, anti-conversion, blasphemy and apostasy laws continue to blight many lives throughout the world. We appeal to the committee to continue to resolutely support the right of each individual to change religion or choose the religion of her choice and insist that this is a clear implication of the Article 18 protection of freedom of religion and belief.