Foreign Affairs Committee on June 2nd, 2014

[Will Postma]

Okay, I'll go very quickly.

It's only in the past 10 or 15 years that we've had a clear picture of migration. Many young people, many children, up to the age of 18, yes, they have moved to other cities partly for learning and partly for work reasons. We've understood that, assuming children can still stay safe and protected and be supported, maybe that aspect of migration is part of the reality of how children grow up in, say, Burkina Faso, or other countries of West Africa.

So we really understood with our partners, with working children movements, the importance that migration may have. But also trafficking is still a very real danger in that there are still too many individuals who will lure children who are away from their families, their natural safety net of support, say, and encourage them to go to Côte d'Ivoire or to Ghana, to work on cocoa plantations, and to receive a bicycle or some steady source of income, and that often does not materialize. That's the kind of migration that is trafficking, which we do not want to see and we use every effort to prevent.

A key way is using local translation of laws that are already in place, and sharing those out in one of the many local languages so that people understand laws in their context, and it's not just written in French at a national level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to finish up with Mr. Anderson today. You have five minutes, please.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'd just like to follow up on that with just one more step. I'm just wondering, we heard earlier about how important it is to have data on appropriate domestic child labourers. When you're talking about migration, about young people moving—and I guess I would ask both Save the Children and Ms. Buchholz—at what age do you feel children should be allowed to work on a regular basis? Should they be the age of majority?

In their situations, in the place where you are, what is that age that you would feel comfortable with saying, yes, young people can be working regularly?

[Christine Buchholz]

I can address part of that question. In Haiti, the child labour laws allow children who are 15 and over to work. We see a lot of children who are 10, 11, 12—younger than 15—and we know that families are very poor and they want a way to earn wages. However, the children that we're talking about are working, but not paid wages for their efforts.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

We'll come back to that in a minute. I'm just interested in what Save the Children would say here as well.

[Patricia Erb]

Countries have all defined individually what the minimum age is, and that varies. It's very typical for the age to be 14. But there are some countries that have stepped down to 12. The issue is that there are children who are below that age who are working.

The problem with not being recognized, and being almost illegal, is that they then work in less protected conditions. If you don't recognize that they can exist, that they do exist, you can't protect them in any way. So we spend a lot of time trying to understand the situation of each child here. We have children for example working in the agriculture sector. They work with their families. They work with their families maybe with a company, and some of it is small, some of it might be moderate or acceptable, and some might be very exploitative conditions.

We think, in Save the Children, that it's very important to understand exactly the context that we're speaking about, because we have been part of global campaigns that have banned work for children and what we did is something we don't want to do. We pushed them to go to more hidden and worse forms, and we will not do that again.

So we will look at the situation carefully, and ensure that those children have options they can move to. If they're working because they need to and nobody is going to give them the money, you have to look at their situation and try to see how you get them to school, how you get them to play, but maybe also protect them at some types of work.

So it's a complex issue.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I have just a couple of questions specific to Haiti. You mentioned that there were child labour laws in Haiti, but it seems to me that you were saying that you need more enforcement rather than more legislation. Is that an appropriate way of wording that?

Secondly, I'm just wondering, are you comfortable that the human trafficking laws that have been put in place are adequate, but they just need enforcement as well?

[Christine Buchholz]

Sure.

In terms of child labour laws, we would like to see those enforced; that is correct. There is no human trafficking legislation and we'd like to see that drafted, passed, and enforced. I think it's a challenge of institutions that are ill-equipped. We have called on the Brigade for the Protection of Minors. They have taken down our reports, taken in the children, but there aren't places to put some of these children.

Our child advocates working in the field identified a need for children who are being severely abused while in restavek, and as a result we ended up creating a transitional home for 12 girls. We're housing them. We're providing them an education, offering them therapy, and providing them vocational training opportunities, but we are only one of a handful of places where children can go. There isn't enough infrastructure to support the government institutions that also need to do more.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Just to ask one question, when we were doing our study on Syria, one of the things that we approached was the issue of sexual violence, and people were very reluctant to speak about that. I'm just wondering, can you give us an idea, in terms of the restavek issue, of what percentage of young people would be abused because of labour issues? What percentage are put in sexual abuse situations? What percentage would be trafficked into the sex trade? Do you have any kinds of figures like that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have—

[Christine Buchholz]

I'm afraid I don't have specifics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'll ask you to respond, but that's all the time that David has. Go ahead, answer the question. That would be great.

[Christine Buchholz]

Our focus has been strictly on the labour issue. We do know that girls in our program have been sexually abused, but we don't have a percentage, per se.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. Thank you. Do we have any final questions from our MPs at all? We have about five minutes left, and that completes it. Is there one question that people have? You guys have one question? Okay, so go ahead Romeo.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, to all, for very informative presentations.

I concur with a lot of the answers that were given here. I want to touch on an aspect that we talked about today, which is the solutions that have to be child-oriented, the participation of children in the decisions that affect them directly, the child being at the centre of interventions, and so on.

I think that's an important matter, and I'd like any of you four to answer a question. How do we achieve that objective? How do we implement those kinds of concepts in order to implement some of the minimum standards that we're talking about here?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Who would like to answer that?

Dr. Singer.

[Dr. Peter Singer]

I'll take a quick whack at that.

I used a lot of examples of technologies. One of the things we've learned at Grand Challenges Canada is that you have to integrate technological, social, and business innovation. As a concrete example, one of the innovations we have is called “no sugar for me”. It's a program in east Africa that engages young women and girls and helps empower them so they're not susceptible to this phenomenon of sugar daddies, which is essentially transactional sex from older men for little bits of money.

There's a concrete example of an innovation, a social innovation, that's engaging children, in this case, young girls, to help empower them and let them avoid.... I think those ideas of engaging children, the social innovation aspects of an integrated technological, business, and social approach, are extremely important.

I can give you several other examples, but I won't in light of the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Nina, you have one final quick question.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

My questions are for Save the Children Canada.

How does Save the Children Canada operate within the cultural norms in communities? What restrictions do you face from country to country, and based on their cultural differences, how does this affect potential solutions to problems?

[Will Postma]

Thanks for that question.

I think culture and context are really important. The best way to understand that culture and context is taking the time to work with local partners.

I was in Ethiopia about 10 days ago and worked with a community there. They were taking the time to listen to the voices of children and to work with local government leaders. It's making sure there's enough time, not just to be together but to solicit input on, say, a learning curriculum, to solicit input as to how to best facilitate very tough topics around planning, marketing, or budgeting. How can we best understand from them how we can best help them learn?

It's taking that time to do a very good job, and that would bring in understandings around culture and context. It would really give voice to young people, and for them it helps them understand the program as being their own program.

That's just one example.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

To our witnesses, thanks for your flexibility today as we worked around votes.

Thank you very much, to Grand Challenges Canada, Dr. Singer; and to Save the Children Canada, Patricia Erb and Will Postma; and joining us from Washington, we had Christine Buchholz, from Restavek Freedom Foundation.

Thanks, and with that, the meeting is adjourned.