Thank you very much for the privilege of being here. We appreciate your consideration of our comments. We thank you for welcoming our guests. We are particularly appreciative of member of Parliament David Anderson, who has made it possible for us to be here today.
As mentioned, I'm the chief executive officer of a charitable organization established 43 years ago in Canada called the Voice of the Martyrs. Voice of the Martyrs is established around the world and has as its prime mandate to come alongside and to care for those who are being persecuted for their faith, for their religious beliefs.
In particular, we are a Christian organization and as such are not only a registered charity but a religious order. Our chairman, Peter Jardine, who is with me today, will comment in a few minutes. Then we have a brief video for you.
The purpose of our visit is first and foremost to tell you what we have found to be true, or at least what is evolving as a truth as more and more information comes to light, in respect to the nature of persecution.
If we have a purpose here today, it's to be available to you and others to inform you in any way that we can so that you can make good decisions on matters concerning religious freedom and persecution. We believe and want to stress—and hopefully we'll show you some evidence today or have you hear some evidence today, of this fact—that a very large majority of the persecution in the world today is against Christians.
Now, we have a bias, which I'll express right up front: we are a Christian mission wholly supported by Canadian donors who are largely of the Christian faith, and though that is not a restriction, it is a fact.
We are interested in introducing you to one part of what is happening in persecution against Christians: what is happening in the country of Nigeria, the most populous of all African countries and one that is clearly divided down the middle, dividing the north and the south, the south being very largely Christian in heritage and the north being more radical, fundamentalist, and extremist.
The clashes that exist in that country are exemplary of persecution around the world. Today we're talking about Nigeria. You may interchange it with any number of other countries in which these kinds of things are going on, but we thought Nigeria was a good example, and we'll show you some things today that hopefully will support that assumption.
But mostly we wanted to introduce you to a young lady named Saa, who has been very brave throughout many experiences and is also brave enough and thankfully willing to come here today as our guest, and now as your guest, to tell a little of her story and answer your questions.
Emmanuel is somebody we as a mission have worked with who is doing some tremendous work on human rights and religious freedom, particularly in Nigeria. He has been heard by the U.S. Congress on more than one occasion, has spoken at the UN, and is considered to be an expert on Nigeria. We're thankful as well that Emmanuel is with us today. He is the legal guardian of Saa.
I will turn it over at this point to Peter Jardine, who is our chairman. Then we have a short four-minute video for you before we move on with the program.