Evidence of meeting #5 for Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rights.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Eight out of 15 are women.
When you said on page 4 of your dissertation that “Rights & Democracy facilitated the participation of Afghan women and civil society representatives”, how many were women? These are the people who assisted with the original law, but most of the progressive elements they brought forward did not make it into law. How many of those were women?
12:30 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
I'm being passed the exact numbers. The committee has 18 people, and 11 are women.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
How many women were on the original committee that participated in the original law?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
That's the committee. That's the committee of 18.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
The same committee that didn't get its proposals observed in the first one is now reviewing.
12:30 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
They're going to be proposing the same things they proposed the first time.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
My understanding is that the Minister of Justice has to negotiate these amendments with the Ulema Council, made up of Shia clerics. This is what is probably going to take some time.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
That wasn't done the first time around. Is that the difference?
12:30 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
It was done to a certain extent, because we were part of that process, but apparently there were two versions. There was the one the drafting committee brought forward, and there was the one the Ulema Council brought forward. At some point, we were discussing different versions of the same article.
In the final analysis, they went ahead with the Ulema Council version, except for 10 articles--out of 250--that they integrated from our proposal.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
So you're assuring us that there will be measures put in place to ensure that the same thing that happened the first time doesn't reoccur.
12:30 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
We have the commitment of the President and of the justice minister that the new legislation that they're going to bring forward is going to meet two tests. One is the concept of equality, which is part of the constitution of Afghanistan. The second test is that it will meet the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women, which Afghanistan was the first Muslim country to ratify without any reservation. Those are the commitments we have, and we're working on the premise that these commitments are going to be met.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Very good, thank you.
And I'm sorry, I have only five minutes.
Rather than concentrating on who knew, conspiracy theories, I'll tell you that in Parliament in Canada--and I've been here only since 2008--we have lots of surprises as well, such as parties voting against our own human trafficking laws that would protect our women and children here.
So setting aside conspiracy theories, I want to know how we are now taking security measures to protect the women in the families of these men who wrote this personal status law and what security measures we are proactively looking at to protect women from retribution.
May 7th, 2009 / 12:35 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
In six provinces—and what we hope to do in the near future is extend it to all of the 34 provinces—we are working with legal aid clinics that are providing support to women whose rights are abused.