Thank you, honourable member.
I think part one is generally that when you look at the statistics, you see that 91% of the Somalian population is under the age of 40, and 75% of the population is under the age of 30 years old. We can safely say around half of the Somalian population is under the age of 15, so you can imagine the number of children.
Our society is recovering from a protracted civil war. The victims of the conflict, this civil war, were primarily women and children. As you said, the statistics are huge, and the numbers we've seen when it comes to women or girls and education are not comparable to those of men in the country.
One of the things we would like to see happening, particularly with Canada's leadership, is to help us educate more girls and to help us send girls to schools. From what we know, if you educate a girl, you educate an entire village or a community, as they say. It is an area that is a top priority for us in terms of human capital development, in terms of social development, and in terms of reconciling the communities, because we need more girls in school. The enrolment rates are still at the lowest, very low, even at elementary schools.
We would like to build on Canada's recent success at the conference on girls' education in Vancouver. We would also like to praise Canada's feminist foreign policy, in which gender and women's empowerment are a priority. We would like your support to help us develop education and other services for our women and girls.