Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 17th, 2015

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much.

My questions are mainly for Mr. Gignac.

During your presentation, you briefly discussed the fact that there were already some services in the camps, such as a form of assistance aimed directly at women and young girls who have been sexually abused or subjected to gender-based violence.

Could you elaborate a bit and tell us more about the programs and forms of assistance that already exist? Can you also tell us what Canada is doing under those programs and how it could better help those types of victims?

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

We are trying to reconnect.

This won't count against your remaining time.

I think we will suspend for a minute or two, but please don't go far away as we hope to re-establish communication and we still have a couple more questioners.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I would ask you to please take your seats.

The solution we're going to find here is that Madam Michaud's question will be passed on to Mr. Gignac and he will answer it, but we'll suspend trying to re-establish contact. However, Madam Michaud still has time remaining, so I would ask her to continue with her questioning.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Four minutes.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to put the same question to the World Vision Canada representatives. I think you may have an interesting perspective on this issue.

Are there any aid or service programs provided directly to women or young girls who have been victims of sexual violence or gender-based violence? What is Canada's contribution or involvement in those kinds of programs? What more could Canada do to help those victims?

[Bart Witteveen]

I'll speak for World Vision. We contribute to addressing that very sensitive issue. There's a medical component to that. There's a psychological component. Then there is, let's say, the recuperative component. We contribute to each of those essentially indirectly through our support to access to health care, but most specifically in our child protection programming, where the provision of child-friendly spaces allows children to get some sense of normalcy as they recuperate from these dramatic experiences that they've had.

In that sense, we don't have dedicated programs for that, but we feed into the overall care that is provided to these people. The sad thing is that we're dealing with that after the fact, as it were. The key issue is trying to find avenues of protection, but that, of course, is a much more complicated question.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Did you want to add anything, Mr. Fischer?

[Martin Fischer]

I'll make a similar comment as I made to Monsieur Trottier, and that is that we're facing a multitude of settings that present distinct challenges in terms of being able to provide services.

As I said earlier around health, it's similar services, similar challenges, when it comes to the psychosocial dimension of SGBV survivors. Oftentimes, even within cities, you would have populations that have taken over abandoned buildings, for example, which have stopped being constructed because of the current crisis. It sounds benign, but locating, registering, and then providing services to those families is difficult. First identifying where they are is a challenge, and then being able to provide services in those kinds of physical environments, where privacy, for example, is a key concern, is even more challenging.

With regard to camps, the Kurdish government is doing a decent job at setting up camps—the physical structure of them. They should be set up to provide the physical space for those kinds of services, but then finding the appropriate partners who have the trained individuals to provide that is not easy.

I think it's also important, especially within Kurdistan, to emphasize that as humanitarian agencies and especially the NGOs are coming in, there's a start-up phase to these processes. Essentially, you sort of sequence the services and put into place the services that you can, based on, in our case, either private funding or government funding. I think the words we've heard over and over again today are being able to be flexible and adaptable to the dynamic situation.

As for parliamentarians, it's important to keep in mind that as we think of a displacement crisis, we so often think that these only take place in camps. We see the images of camps. Certainly one thing I took away last week was that this is one side of a very important study, but there's another side that's equally important. These are these informal settlements, where it's even more difficult to provide services to displaced populations.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

To complete the round, we have Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Ms. Pearce, on these maps that we were given, could you help me to understand a little better? On the one map, it has areas that are clearly not accessible and are marked in red. On the other map, although I understand it's for the same date and period of time, it indicates there is food distribution throughout all of the areas.

Which is the case? Could you explain this a little better?

[Jane Pearce]

I don't have the map.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

One seems to be in conflict with the other, or perhaps I'm reading it wrong.

[Jane Pearce]

The map that I have here, you'll see that we're looking at the shading of the maps. They're both in an amber colour, a sandy kind of colour. The one here that I have shows how many people we actually reached over the course of January. Then if you go in here, this will show you what kind of assistance has gone into that part of the country.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

But it indicates that it's not accessible, and the other one indicates that there's been distribution.

[Jane Pearce]

Though only parts of it. So when you have a look at the red, that's a place called Hit, where we have not been able to get into but in other areas of the governorate we can reach them.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Oh, I see.

[Jane Pearce]

As I said, it depends very much on the situation on any given day. It's not as if every day you can go to Amerli or those places. We give the implementing partner the liberty and the freedom to go when they feel it is safe.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

With the food distribution and the vouchers as well, how secure is that? Are there any that have been siphoned off or find their way into the enemies' hands? Are you fairly confident that it's secure, that the food is actually going to those who do need it?

[Jane Pearce]

In the KRG areas and in the areas south of Baghdad, I'm confident. I know and I monitor that on a regular basis. As for the areas in the centre, the governorate is controlled by ISIL. I am confident that the implementing partner carries out the distributions as and when needed. I have no reason to expect that there would be any misappropriation of World Food Programme food at this point.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

With the vouchers themselves, too, have they been proven to be fairly secure or has there been any counterfeiting or marketing of them?

[Jane Pearce]

Not thus far. At the moment it's quite a small catchment area. It's quite easy for us to monitor it, and we don't see that. But we are, in the next couple of months, moving on to a credit card that we will be using for the voucher program. We're transitioning over to this, and that will be even more secure.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Is there chip technology in it, too?

[Jane Pearce]

It is chip technology.