Afghanistan Committee on March 28th, 2022

[Katherine Moloney]

Absolutely.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Taheri, could you respond very quickly? I think I'm almost out of time.

[Djawid Taheri]

That's absolutely the case.

The minister does have the authority to authorize a TRP with respect to a particular population, in terms of emergency settlement or situations of crisis such as this. TRV or TRP, travel visas or permits, either way, would assist Afghans to get to Canada and follow up with the rest of the process while in this country.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The problem with TRVs is the arduous process. Even with the Ukrainian situation, people have to get the biometrics and do all of that stuff, which is hugely problematic. I think TRPs would be more expedited.

As it stands now, people who've submitted a request for assistance to get to safety, such as the cases of your two families, Ms. Moloney.... You submit an application, and then you don't hear anything. That's what I'm seeing right now. People are not getting a response at all from the government. You're not getting a file number, a G number, and you're stuck in the system in the middle of nowhere.

Is that correct?

[Katherine Moloney]

Absolutely, it's a significant limitation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

On behalf of all the members of the committee, I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today, and for their contributions.

We'll suspend for a few minutes to prepare for the second panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I call this meeting back to order.

I would like to welcome our second panel this evening. On behalf of the committee members, I welcome Sally Armstrong, journalist by profession; and the former chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Sima Samar, who is not here yet. From Human Rights Watch, we have Heather Barr, associate director.

On behalf of the committee, I welcome all of you.

You will each have five minutes. Please respect the time.

We'll begin with Ms. Armstrong, for five minutes, please.

[Sally Armstrong, Journalist, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you tonight.

I think we are among the last to speak and I'm pretty pleased about that. I don't usually like being last, but in the last few days, we have managed to see evidence, very clear evidence, that the Taliban have not moderated. They are the same hateful, misogynist, mostly illiterate thugs that they were when I first met them soon after they took over in 1996.

I am a journalist. I covered them then, and I have covered Afghanistan ever since, so I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to address your committee tonight to bring facts as I know them that you can deliberate.

I have three points to make: the Taliban, the Afghans and the Canadians.

First, we have the Taliban. They were born out of a system that was created by misery and poverty. They were educated at madrasahs in Pakistan, where they learned hatred and misogyny. They couldn't govern then, when they took over in 1996, and then cannot govern now, but this time, they sold themselves as “moderated” and they did that to a world that had been coached by former president of the United States Donald Trump and his gang to begin to overlook Afghanistan.

I can tell you that from mid-August, when they strutted into Kabul, my social media platforms, my WhatsApp and and my Messenger have been filled with mind-jarring videos of what the Taliban are doing: whipping young women and handing the whip from man to man to man around a circle while the women scream for mercy and suffer the pain of the whipping. Besides that, the Taliban, as they took each village, demanded a list of all the girls over the age of 14 and all the widows under the age of 44 to give to their soldiers because, according to them, they're allowed four each that God told them they had the right to have.

These are the miscreants that former American president Donald Trump negotiated with, and his actions in ignoring the Afghan government—which certainly had problems of its own—and elevating these thugs as conquerors whipped them into a frenzy to make demands such as releasing hardened criminals, murderers, into the community. Also, they kept saying they had moderated their views, although whenever they were asked, “How do you now view sharia law?”, they wouldn't answer the question.

Pundits refer to the Taliban as a rigid version of sharia law. That's not so. There's not a word in the Quran to support what the Taliban have done. Then and now, what they've done is that they've hijacked their own religion for political opportunism. They got away with it then, and they're getting away with it now. What do they do with it? They thrash girls to show they're serving God. The only difference today is that they've been joined by discontented jihadis from around the world, men who couldn't give a fig about the Geneva Conventions or military codes of conduct.

Let's talk about the Afghans. Imagine saying that the Afghans couldn't defend themselves. It makes me think that in one year the scientists found a vaccine to save all the people in the whole world, but in 20 years, their politicians and the politicians from the countries that came, presumably, to help them could not find the path to peace. How can anyone blame those innocent people, who were totally sold out by their warlords, by their tribal leaders, by their own government and, frankly, by all of us?

Now let's talk about the Canadians—the true north. As you know, it has been said that our 20 years there were a failure. Well, I can tell you something about those 20 years. I can tell you that while your tax dollars were at work, the life expectancy in Afghanistan went from 47 years to 63 years. That's not a failure. That's a miracle.

Then, when they were in trouble and we all went away and said, “You're on your own now”, Canada said, “We'll take the vulnerable ones, we'll take them fast, and over time we'll take 40,000.” That didn't happen. It didn't happen because IRCC either was incompetent in doing its job or chose not to do its job. There are so many excuses. One of them said to me, “Well, we're not digitalized, you know.” In 2022? That's pretty shameful. Or it's “We're overworked” or “We're overwhelmed.” None of these are excuses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Ms. Armstrong, your time is up.

[Sally Armstrong]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We will come back to you.

I would now love to welcome the former chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Ms. Sima Samar.

Ms. Samar, you have exactly five minutes to make your presentation. Please go ahead.

[Sima Samar, Former Chairperson, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, As an Individual]

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I am Sima Samar. I'm a medical doctor by training, but I spent all of my life defending human rights and fighting for equality for women in my country. Among my other responsibilities, I was the first Minister of Women's Affairs after the 2001 fall of the Taliban, and served as the chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for 17 years.

Afghanistan has been at war for 44 years. It began with the coup by the pro-USSR Afghans, followed by the military invasion by the USSR in 1979, and the war continues with the Taliban military takeover of Afghanistan for the second time. Unfortunately, the western and Arab countries chose the most conservative group of Afghans to train, equip and support in the fight against communism.

Women became the main victims of war. Since they were not carrying a gun and were not an active element of the war, they were not seen as necessary to be included in decision-making, and they experienced restrictions on their freedoms and rights. We witnessed the killing of our loved ones, the destruction of our property and our social fabric, forced displacement, and the degradation of our position in society during the past years of conflict. However, we still stand for our rights and freedoms and struggle to protect our human dignity in these most difficult times.

You have all watched the scary scenes in Afghanistan, after the Taliban took over, in the media and on social media, but the situation is so much worse than what you see. Most of the time, I cannot find words to describe it. Imagine the level of desperation needed to sell your children or your organs to feed the rest of the family.

Afghanistan is a collective failure of Afghanistan, the Afghan government, the Afghan people and the international community. It has been a failure of accountability, the rule of law, justice and a commitment to human rights.

Twenty years of international community engagement gave some space for the improvement of human rights and women's rights, and a space to exercise basic democratic and political rights in Afghanistan. However, these advancements for women's rights and human rights were sacrificed for political advantage in Afghanistan and abroad.

History has shown that if you want to destroy a nation, you do three things.

First, you make half of the population inferior and second-class citizens. In this way, you start the mentality of male superiority, and the women are inferior in the family, which then transfers to the whole society, including the political leadership.

Second, you destroy the education system in the country. People who want to control the population, of course, can easily control the uneducated people.

The third action to destroy a nation is to devalue human rights and principles, equality and the rule of law. When there is no respect for human rights and the rule of law, then violations of human rights become a daily practice.

During this violent conflict, the people in my country have been caught between the extreme left, which is pro-USSR and communist, and the extreme right, which is the Taliban. Currently, the people who are in power practically ignore Afghanistan's obligation to the human rights conventions that were ratified by Afghanistan.

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is very serious. Many have been displaced. People cannot find food or shelter. Most have no income or access to job opportunities. The humanitarian crisis got worse with a governance and economic crisis, on top of the drought and the COVID pandemic, which had already devastated the people.

My recommendations are as follows.

First, humanitarian aid is a temporary solution to save lives, but there is a report of unequal distribution of the relief program. Some of the Hazara districts are receiving very little, as the Hazara-headed NGOs were not included in the distribution. There has been no transparent and equal distribution of relief to the people in need. There should be no tolerance for corruption or discrimination.

Second, women should be involved in all levels—on policy, on distribution and on receiving the aid—and also people with disabilities and people who are internally displaced.

Third, human rights values and principles should not be negotiated away under any circumstances. Respect for culture, religion and even sovereignty of the country should not be used as an excuse.

Fourth, accountability and justice should be part of the agenda pressed with the Taliban. One of the reasons for our collective failure is lack of attention to issues of accountability and justice for international crimes, which has promoted a culture of impunity—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Ms. Samar. Your time is up. We will come back to you.

[Sima Samar]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Now we'll go to Ms. Barr for five minutes. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

[Heather Barr, Associate Women’s Rights Director, Human Rights Watch]

Thank you.

Thanks for holding this hearing, and thanks for inviting me. If I look a bit sleepy, that's because it's 4:30 in the morning in Pakistan, where I am, but I felt I couldn't miss a chance to talk with you.

The human rights situation in Afghanistan, as Dr. Samar said, is deteriorating. It's going from extremely bad to even worse, with new signs of this every day, including extrajudicial killings and abductions, censorship and intimidation of the media, and violations of women's rights.

As you know, on Wednesday, the Taliban extended the ban on girls' secondary education. On Friday, they began blocking women from leaving the country without a male family member escorting them. On Sunday, they segregated the parks and blocked foreign media. The Taliban are systemically violating women's rights to work, study, protest, speak, travel, access health care, live free from violence and have a political voice. There's no reason to think there aren't more crackdowns coming.

I want to talk about what Canada, as a country with a feminist foreign policy, should do in this crisis. As you know, Canada is one of four countries that sent troops to Afghanistan in the last 20 years and that also have a feminist foreign policy. The others are France, Germany and Sweden. These four countries have a special responsibility to Afghan women and girls.

The crisis happening in Afghanistan right now is the most serious women's rights crisis in the world. It's the most serious women's rights crisis the world has faced since 1996, when the Taliban took over the last time. If feminist foreign policy doesn't mean standing with Afghan women right now, in this crisis, it begs the question of what feminist foreign policy means, and risks the conclusion, “Not much”.

For the last seven and a half months, there's been inadequate leadership, inadequate coordination and inadequate political will, globally, applied to defending women's rights in Afghanistan. The Taliban's actions in the last week should help drive greater political will and coordination, but many have been looking to the United States for leadership. It's clear now that leadership is not coming from that quarter. It's time for the countries that have pledged to have a feminist foreign policy, including Canada, to fill that gap.

There aren't any easy solutions, but there are actions that Canada can and should take.

First, I listened to your previous panel talking about the resettlement of Afghans. It's absolutely clear that Canada should urgently assist Afghans who can't live safely in Afghanistan to resettle, and it should urge other countries to do the same. People at heightened risk include human rights defenders—including women's rights defenders—women who were in high-profile and non-traditional roles, members of the LGBT community, and journalists.

Here in Pakistan, I hear every day from Afghans who are trying to make their way to safety, some of whom are still in Afghanistan, some of whom are stranded here in Pakistan, and many of whom sound suicidal. Some of them are specifically waiting on Canada, and waiting and waiting. Canada has the power to help them survive this crisis and rebuild their lives.

I also want to talk about how to help make life bearable for people in Afghanistan. The international community needs to take a set of coordinated steps together, and Canada should be a leader in that process. There are four steps.

The first is to deny the Taliban legitimacy, end the exemption on the travel ban for their leaders, stop having meetings with them outside Afghanistan, end high-level meetings, end photo ops with them, and only send delegations to meet them that are at least half women and include Afghan women.

The second is to do everything possible to protect human rights defenders, including the women, girls and men who are coming out to protest the secondary school ban. Speak up immediately and loudly when activists are abused, abducted or detained.

The third is to adjust your funding decisions. Don't fund discrimination. Fund only programs—for example, parts of the education system—that equally serve women, men, girls and boys, and invest in alternative education to assist girls who have been shut out of school.

The fourth point—my last point—is, don't punish all Afghans for Taliban abuses. Dr. Samar talked about the humanitarian crisis. People are starving in Afghanistan because of decisions made in the White House and other foreign capitals. Donors must do everything possible to meet humanitarian needs and unblock Afghanistan's economy so that it can function, while also maintaining pressure on the Taliban over human rights.

The tragedy unfolding for women and girls in Afghanistan right now has risks for all of us. If the Taliban can do this with little international response, it will embolden enemies of women's rights everywhere: in this region, in your region, everywhere. Feminist foreign policy has to mean feminist solidarity and, right now, the people who need Canada's solidarity most desperately are Afghan women and girls.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Ms. Barr, for speaking to us all the way from Pakistan.

We will proceed to the rounds of questions.

First, we will go to Mr. Ruff for six minutes. Please go ahead.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks again to the witnesses for clearly highlighting how urgent it is for Canada to step up and do what we can to help these Afghan women and children, all Afghans who are in dire need, and the human rights defenders.

I agree with you, Ms. Armstrong. In 20 years, we did make a difference, in that there's a whole generation of women and girls who got an opportunity they'd never had before, and I honestly believe that some of them down the road will help take Afghanistan to the next steps. That's the seed of optimism, if I can have any with how terrible the situation is.

My first question is for you, Ms. Barr. It's about Pakistan, where you're situated, and the importance of the pressure that's coming. Is there pressure within Pakistan itself about the safety network there for those Afghans who are getting out? They are either being turned back.... Is the Taliban putting pressure, through its networks, to target these individuals? The previous witnesses talked about those hit lists that are out there. They're going after these human rights defenders, these targeted minorities, etc.

Can you expand on how important it is to act urgently? What's the situation of support in Pakistan?

[Heather Barr]

I've definitely heard from people who fled Afghanistan because they were unsafe there, and also felt unsafe in Pakistan. The biggest difficulty that Afghans in Pakistan are facing is that they can't live here. Other witnesses have talked about how you only get a 60-day visa, so you're in this constant cycle of trying to renew your visa. If you don't have a valid visa, you can't rent a place to live and you can't get a SIM card. You actually can't leave the country without getting special permission to leave the country if you're undocumented.

People are looking at a situation.... People have made it here and they have no pathway to any other country, so they're living permanently in this situation. They can't send their kids to school and they can't work. I think many Afghans are going back to Afghanistan because they're running out of money and they can't feed themselves. At least if they go back to Afghanistan, they'll hopefully have family members who will take them in.

The biggest problem is that they can't actually survive here.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks, Ms. Barr.

My next question is for you, Ms. Samar. You made a number of recommendations, and my question is how we implement some of them. With the unequal relief that's going to different minorities, women and the education side of the house, I'm concerned. I guess I'm pessimistic, having been there myself, about the ability to influence and enforce that. It's why I think we need to be doing more to get people out.

Can you expand on how you think we could implement your first two recommendations?

[Sima Samar]

First, it is really important to work on a mechanism to monitor things properly, and that can be done through the UN and NGOs that are working in the field in the local communities.

The second point is that we are aware of the very serious situation of humanitarian crisis, but now we should try to involve.... It should be a condition to the Taliban that the international community will not give humanitarian relief to the people unless there are women who are making decisions, who are responsible for its delivery and who are receiving it. They have to accept that, and they will accept that, because there's a lot of pressure on them. I think that is really important.

The third point, which I insist on, is that the international community should be really strong on human rights. As Heather Barr and my colleague have both said, we worked hard in order to implement some of the principles of human rights in Afghanistan, and that is all gone. If the Taliban wants to be recognized by the international community, they have obligations and they have to accept human rights. There should not be a negotiation on human rights with the Taliban. It should be clear.

The fourth point, which I again insist on, is accountability and justice for the crimes they committed, including arbitrary killing, torture every day, arbitrary arrest and the violation of human rights. The only country in the world that officially banned women's and girls' education is Afghanistan. Is that acceptable? If that cannot be counted as war crimes or crimes against humanity....

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I'm still, I guess, almost cynical about the Taliban and whether they care. I think our challenge is that we need to step up and we need to do more to get these people out.

Ms. Armstrong, there is only about half a minute left. Could you just expand a bit on what you were talking about right from the get-go, the fact that the Taliban hasn't changed and they're going to go back to their old ways, and just how terrible and dangerous the situation is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Your time is almost up.

Could you be brief, please?

[Sally Armstrong]

I'll make one comment.

IRCC has to get up to speed. They have to do the job they're supposed to do. In this country, those excuses are just not good enough. We are not getting vulnerable people out because our people are not doing their jobs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ruff.

We will move to Mr. El-Khoury for six minutes. Please go ahead.