Evidence of meeting #38 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was kurdish.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Ms. Saeed, do you have any comments on how we get the humanitarian assistance to the Yazidis specifically?
Member of Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
First of all, I want to thank you.
Second, there are some organizations in Canada. One of them is the Iraqi society for human rights Canada. We are in contact with them. You can contact them as well. We can both work to distribute all the aid fairly, even here in Kurdistan. As for me I will have data contracts with [Inaudible—Editor] ready to help. Also, with the Kurdish government we are all ready to receive any help from you. To be fair, we want the Canadian society to be contributed in your name. We can't contact your organization there. As I say, there is an organization, the Iraqi society for human rights.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I think I'm being told I'm out of time.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll ask my questions in English to avoid any further complications in translation.
Thank you very much to all the witnesses for being here today. Thank you for the very interesting comments you've made and for what we have been able to learn through your testimony.
I would like to follow up a bit on Ms. Brown's question because I also wanted to ask how Canada can best target our assistance to help those who are the most at risk. You mentioned, Ms. Saeed, the Iraqi society for human rights. What is their role? What kinds of activities do they undertake? Do they give humanitarian assistance, such as delivering food or shelter or things like that?
Member of Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
I have been working with this organization before. They are ready to provide shelter, food, clothing, and any aid here to the refugees in Kurdistan. The members are from Kurdistan and from Canada.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
As the official opposition in Canada, we have really called for Canada to provide increased and targeted help for minorities, refugees, and victims of sexual violence in Iraq and Syria. Based on your knowledge of the situation, what are the primary needs in terms of housing, food, health, and educational services?
Member of Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
The thing we are most in need of now is a place to live, like camps or houses, but not tents because it is not suitable for the cold weather here in Iraq. You are free to help by any means you can. I cannot force you or tell you exactly what things you have to help with, but the greatest need is housing because they are sleeping on the streets.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
What is the education situation for the young people? Do they have access to some form of school while they are in camps?
Member of Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
This year all of the refugees were delayed in their education because there was not any access to schools. But next year we are all trying as much as we can to make contracts with the government to make all the refugees have access to schools in the Kurdistan region in the places where they are camping.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Who is coordinating this effort to give access to school?
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
I'm thinking here of young people, children who are caught in this terrible and awful situation. Do you see a lot of psychological scars, psycho-social problems with these young people? Is there anything that can be done to prevent them from being traumatized for the rest of their lives?
Member of Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
My opinion is that after this tragedy that took place in Sinjar, all the people from there will have post-traumatic syndrome, psychologically they are not stable, especially the girls who had been raped. They are in a terrible psychological situation. I think all of these girls need some psychotherapy at least, so they can get to live with their new lives.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much. We're now going to turn over to Mr. Hawn for five minutes.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Five minutes goes quickly. I've got a number of questions and I'd appreciate fairly concise answers.
From what we're hearing today it's hard to tell who's the bigger enemy of the Yazidis: the Kurds or ISIS. If ISIS were eliminated would their oppression be simply replaced by Kurdish oppression, Mr. Haider?
Assistant to the Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International
Let me go back to my first statement and ask: who let ISIS in, but the Kurds? It's the same thing. Would the trust have been lost since the second round happened? That's my personal belief. As well, Yazidis believe in general that we can't trust them ever again. There was a route that was going to be opened by the YPG, which is the Kurdish fighters who are fighting alongside the Yazidis. They wanted to open this route back up for the supplies to get to the mountain, food and such, and they refused to do so.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
The Kurds are as big an enemy as ISIS from the sounds of it.
How big an area are we talking about to supply to the Yazidis?
Assistant to the Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International
Sinjar Mountains has a stretch from east to west that's going to be nearly 14 to 20 miles. The worst of it is for three miles.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Would it make sense to you for us or somebody to go over their heads and airdrop supplies to the Yazidis?
Assistant to the Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International
Indeed. Yes, sir, because if this is not the case nobody will do it. As long as there are people who wanted to claim the goods for themselves, like the political sides, there's no point to let them do it unless somebody else does it.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Some of that has been done, but how secretive would we have to be about that to avoid the Kurds going in and catching the supplies?
Assistant to the Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International
It will not be very secret. There has to be some pinpoints on top of the mountain to drop.
Assistant to the Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International
Yes, it is indeed.