Thank you.
It is an honour to address the standing committee today. I would also like to thank Mr. Sheekh, my colleague, for sharing the panel with me.
I want to indicate up front that I'm coming here not in my capacity as the humanitarian expert on the panel of South Sudan; I'm here in my personal capacity.
I thank you, Mr. Chair, for the introductory remarks. I will be referring to the humanitarian work I've done in the region in South Sudan and why I think this is a privilege and an opportunity. I want to share with the committee some of the observations on South Sudan.
I've worked in South Sudan since 2014 with a commission on fact-finding, the AU-UN Women's Committee. I have also worked with the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, in 2016. Now I'm with the panel of experts.
The views I'm sharing are the views of an ordinary person going to South Sudan. We have seen people sick and tired of the humanitarian situation in South Sudan. When I visited South Sudan in 2014, there was a crisis. When I went back in 2016, people were very tired. When I went back in October of this year, I found that the ordinary people were very weary. I'm talking about my observations on the ordinary people in South Sudan.
Our mandate as a panel of experts also gives us the privilege of talking to different categories of people. When I was talking to the most vulnerable boys and girls, men and women, people who have seen the protracted crisis in South Sudan, they made pertinent observations that I want to share with the Standing Committee today.
In the area of human rights matters, the study that the Standing Committee is working on is very important. You're undertaking a study so that all of Canada can better address the issues of conflict, peace, gender-based violence, security and justice. You are also looking at respect for human rights and at the economic development in South Sudan.
My address today will try to address some of the issues you are looking into.
I will start with the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.
My colleague has already explained in detail the revitalized agreement that was signed on September 12, 2018. As we talk now, there is supposed to be peace in South Sudan. However, I want to highlight the disparity between the peace talks and the reality.
I was engaged in meetings with South Sudanese authorities, the international diplomatic community, the United Nations entities, and some ordinary people in the streets of South Sudan. The public highlighted the plight the ordinary people were going through.
The humanitarian situation in South Sudan is serious. Despite the political progress, which we should all be celebrating, the ordinary South Sudanese people have been suffering since December 2013, and they continue to suffer now.
Some of the issues that are very pertinent in this crisis include conflict-related sexual violence and also gender-based violence.
From the beginning of the conflict in South Sudan, sexual violence has been a very serious issue. The crisis, protracted as it is, has been characterized by a lot of sexual violence. This has affected boys. It has affected men. It has affected women. It has affected girls. It has affected ordinary people, and it continues to affect them now.
People might relate to conflict-related sexual violence as part of the armed conflict, but even during the peace process there are incidents documented of people exposed to conflict-related sexual violence. There are also incidents of gender-based violence.
For us to carefully understand the situation in South Sudan, especially as it relates to gender-based violence, I think it is important for us to remember that even during the South Sudan conflict, there was a lot of reported and documented conflict-related sexual violence, and that with regard to South Sudan, we are looking at a society that is very militarized, a patriarchal society in which the status of women is determined by patriarchal values and other traditional values.
When I say that ordinary people who have been exposed to both conflict-related sexual violence and gender-based violence are weary, I actually mean that it goes back to what happened before 2011. It then goes to the crisis that started in 2013, and it now goes beyond the peace talks in 2015. Between those periods of peace talks, the reality is that people are still exposed to conflict-related sexual violence and also to gender-based violence in the form of early marriages and in the form of domestic violence.
Then we also come to one of the aspects that you are looking at in this study: justice. In all the visits I have made to South Sudan, civilians in particular have been calling for accountability for gross human rights violations and violations of principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have been perpetrated in South Sudan since 2013.
There has been a lot of impunity, but there has been very limited accountability. Recently we were celebrating the Terrain case, in which at least some people were brought to justice. However, the majority of South Sudanese have not seen justice done. They have not seen the atrocities addressed. They have not seen accountability in terms of the lives they lost—those who were near and dear to them—or the malicious injury to their properties.
Now as we talk about peace and the fact that internally displaced persons should be resettled, should be rehabilitated, should go back to their homes, the question for some of them is where they can go.
When I visited South Sudan in October, that was one of the issues raised by ordinary people I talked to—ordinary men, women and young people who actually knew that as we talked about peace, their homes in Bor, Malakal and Yei were occupied by persons, some of whom allegedly perpetrated offences against them, so the humanitarian situation is still very serious, and it is also a serious concern.
Then we also talk about respect for human rights in South Sudan. The human rights paradigm has been very problematic. In that regard, I would urge the international community, including Canada, to look at interventions that can address and redress the situation on the ground.
One aspect of the recommendations would go to supporting human rights defenders. They've been doing a lot of work. They've been documenting a lot of atrocities. They need capacity-building if accountability is going to be realized, maybe through the hybrid court, which was recommended in 2014. There has been an inordinate delay in actually bringing it into operation to implement the recommendations relating to the hybrid court.
There are certain areas that also need a lot of intervention. During the October visit we saw people who need food, so the food insecurity issue is a very serious issue in South Sudan. In that regard I urge the standing committee to look into ways of supporting the agencies on the ground, either governmental organizations or local groups that are trying to redress and address the issue on the ground.
There are other issues relating to unemployment, relating to other human rights violations, on which I would urge the international community, and Canada in particular, to take initiatives to help the local people, to empower them to stand up and address the issues that are very pertinent in the situation of South Sudan.
Thank you.