I'm a Canadian citizen now. I'm very proud and I'm honoured to have been given the citizenship. I love it here very much, but it disappoints me to a great extent to see that racism exists and it's oblivious, to separate the Afghans from the Ukrainians, given the history and the fact that we both have been the victims of the same troll here. Afghans share the pain of Ukrainian folks, because the Russian occupation did brutal things to Afghans. The only difference is that, back then, because the world did not have social media or an Internet connection, they could not advocate and they could not broadcast in two seconds what was going on. Now, people in Ukraine can. That is, in fact, what's happening.
Here in Canada, we hear that human rights are universal, but they're not. When it comes to human rights, people pick and choose. It became a buffet for people to help certain people and not help other people. What we have been seeing—and what I have been personally witnessing since August of last year—is that one group of people has monopolized the IRCC. As Wazhma mentioned, they have only been evacuating and focusing on male interpreters. As much as we would like to see those families seek refuge and find safety in Canada, it's also important to focus on female leaders and female athletes.
Let's check the comparison. There are 9,000 families versus 15 female athletes. That is unacceptable. We need to open the category. We need to reach out, because Canada gave us a definition of people at risk. They are highly vulnerable people and people coming from ethnic minorities, such as the Hazara people, LGBTQ people and women athletes.
We need to help everybody at the same time. There's space for everyone. There's space for Ukrainian folks. There's space for women leaders.