Gordon Brown has announced he has employed Glyenys Kinnock as the first ever dedicated Women’s officer in the Foreign Office.
He told Maire Claire: ‘I have just asked Glenys Kinnock to take on a new ministerial role, working the the UK and developing countries to crack down on forced marriage, rape, genital mutilation, human trafficking, female infanticide and maternal mortality. If we do not act now, future generations will ask how we could allow the systematic violence against women which so disfigures our world today in the way they did about slavery.’
He added: ‘The appointment is not expected to change the horrific statistics overnight. But it shows how seriously we as a government take the movement for women’s empowerment and that we will not rest until global gender justice is achieved.’
Baroness Kinnock will now hold the official title of ‘Minister responsible for tackling international violence against women’.
She said: ‘I’m honoured to be given this role. It is ultimately the job of governments to take responsibility and ensure that they deal with gender inequality and the all too frequent low status and low value accorded to women.’
In a recent shake-up in Gordon Brown’s government, Glenys Kinnock was also appointed as Minister of State for Europe. In order for her to accept the new position in the House of Lords, it is mandatory that she resign her position as MEP. To avoid possible conflict of interest, her husband, Neil Kinnock, also resigned his position as chairman of the British Council.
In her new position as Minister for Europe, Glenys Kinnock vows to engage the European Union in working with her to advance international cooperation against terrorism and to encourage global opportunities.
Along with her new position as Minister for Europe she will also receive a life peerage.
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