Thank you so much.
Thanks for having us here today.
Thanks for giving us the time and listening to our sorrows, our grief and our struggles.
Thank you so much for the special Afghanistan committee with regard to interpreters' extended families and the misleading promises of the IRCC.
What brought us to this special Afghanistan committee is the matter of life and death of our loved ones, a matter of life and death of our siblings, the ones who supported us to be on the front line to support the Canadian mission, to work, to stay there and to stay strong. Today they are in Afghanistan, and we are helpless.
We, the former interpreters, were under contract to the Canadian Forces and the Canadian government while we were there on the front line supporting the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Afghan interpreters who were once heroes to the Government of Canada are zero today because they are stressed, depressed, panicking and mentally unstable due to the live threat to their families and their loved ones.
We have been going through the toughest times of our lives. We will bring up families suffering as an example. I will use my family as an example. How is my family doing as an example of the 300 other families?
My family has been exiled and expelled from our province, and all they had has been confiscated by the Taliban. Our house has been destroyed by the Taliban. The main problem we have is that we cannot go back to our province. Since the Taliban came into power, my family has been on the run to make sure they stay safe and alive. This is one of our main concerns. We have been talking about one specific thing with IRCC from day one, and it's been over seven months since we started this mission or this battle for our families.
This is a matter of life and death. It's not a matter of pay for work. We want them to be evacuated to a third country to make sure they are safe and to make sure they don't become the victim of our enduring relationship with the Canadian government.
It's been months that we have been in direct contact with IRCC to bring up our problems and our family's struggles to survive. We have been telling IRCC the grim realities and what our families are going through. They take notes, and their answer is “we'll get back to you.” We still have dozens of unanswered questions. Sixty-five per cent of the extended families of our former interpreters are still waiting. Sixty-five per cent is big number to be still waiting to receive their UCI and G numbers, but the IRCC is pushing us to get passports. This means we have to disclose our portfolio to let the Taliban recognize who we are. We have to go there to get passports and other required documents, but taking such a action is not safe for our families.
We have a lot of problems. The main problem is that the summer is now here. We kindly told the IRCC months ago that the summer was arriving. We have experienced the struggles of all the people who have been supporting the government and NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. Now that the summer is here, our families are struggling. We told them this months ago. Who is going to be responsible for that?
If being human matters, why are we pushing our families—