Foreign Affairs Committee on March 8th, 2016

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you. Your organization was involved in providing funding to an information gathering system that was necessary to facilitate the exercise of the program. You awarded the program, and you have yet to—

[Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin]

That was necessary—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Sir, I'm sorry, but I control this time. Those are the rules of the committee.

Respectfully, sir, your organization has yet to apologize for what is, I think, very concerning involvement in coercive family planning programs in China. If you simply took a step back and recognized the coercive nature of those programs, and apologized for the activity of your organization in defending the program, I think that would clear the air. There is no doubt that good and important work is being done in this respect, but I have grave concerns about this history and, what seems to me, an unwillingness to face up to it.

[Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin]

No, no, we have worked in China with great dignity and respect for the Chinese government. We have never been involved in coercive issues of family planning. There have been at least five congressional delegations from the United States that have gone to China, have come back, and they have shown quite clearly that we were no part of it. We have their reports.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Under-Secretary-General, thank you so much for being here today. We're very lucky to have you here testifying to the committee as a witness.

I want to ask you a question about climate change. The report that your organization has put out—and thank you for providing us with a copy—talks about, obviously, the disproportionate negative impact that disasters and conflict have on women. But what about climate change? What are your thoughts on that and its potential to have a very disproportionate impact on women? Naturally, the question from there would be that if there is, in fact, a disproportionate impact on women, what does that mean for states that are serious about pursuing climate change policies?

[Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin]

We have to take the issues of climate change, SDGs, and financial development together because they all go together. Climate change is a major disaster that's ongoing. When you look at it in terms of what it means for women and girls, it is a great disaster.

I come from a part of the world where I've seen desertification of large tracts of land, where women and girls have to go long distances to get firewood or water to have a livelihood. In a sense, what it means is that the girls are taken out of school because that's what they have to do, and women also lose livelihoods because of that.

We cannot separate one from the other. What climate change does to women and girls, in terms of what it does to their livelihoods and poverty, is a major issue. We have to take it together and we have to work on it in terms of the choices they make in their lives. I believe that the solutions for the planet will also affect their livelihoods to ensure that women can make better choices for their lives.

For example, I look at a region of the world, the Lake Chad region. Lake Chad is now 10% of what it used to be. All of the fish and the agriculture are gone. We have a plan at the United Nations that actually can feed into it to ensure that this lake can come back and bring back livelihoods. Those are the sorts of things we have to do.

In implementing the SDGs and the climate agenda, we have to bring them all together, because it is not one or the other; it's everything together.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I want to ask you about the importance of midwives particularly in the developing world. Yesterday's announcement did focus on that.

Can you tell us, first of all, how they contribute to the health of women? What progress has been made in strengthening midwifery services in the developing world? What else needs to be done on that front? I know it's a very general question.

[Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin]

Yes, but I think it's important because the three parts of the health system are important: the human resources, the supply chain management system, and the provision of a social protection floor. Those are the three things you require to maintain a health system, and of course, the midwifery part talks to human resources.

We've seen that in countries where you have adequate manpower, you reduce maternal mortality considerably. I'll give you an example. In Ethiopia we have contributed to produce about 38,000 to 40,000 community health workers. These health workers live within the communities in which they work, and in those communities they look after antenatal care. They look after women who are to deliver. They look after HIV tests, immunization, and contraceptive applications. In 10 years of work in Ethiopia we have seen a reduction in maternal mortality of more than 60%, and child mortality by 60%, and we have increased contraceptive acceptance by 400%. So they work, and I think it's the way to go.

In Sudan, which is one of the most difficult countries to work in, there are no midwives on the ground. What we are getting from the Government of Canada is to train these midwives and we are putting together a team to enable that to happen. We're also working with the Canadian Association of Midwives to do this effectively. We believe that if we put the midwives in place and try to get the other pieces in place, the most difficult part might be providing the social protection floor. We will try to do the supply chain management system so that the midwives can work effectively, and if we do that, we save lives.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much. Once again, we're very lucky to have you here today, and the report is very instructive. It's going to give policy-makers a really good idea about what's needed in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Under-Secretary, thank you very much. We'll have to leave it at that for today. I understand you have a flight, and we have another group of witnesses today. I want to thank you very much, and I look forward to your continued work. Working with young women and girls in the countries that need your help is probably one of the most important roles that I can think of, for sure.

Thank you very much.

[Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin]

May I make a last statement?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Yes, you sure can. Go ahead.

[Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin]

I recognize the importance of members of Parliament. I used to be a minister, and ministers have no power. Ministers depend on MPs because MPs appropriate resources. MPs are the ones who look at a project and decide what goes where. They also have oversight on resources that are provided, so they have transparency and accountability.

I recognize this is the most important chamber in government and I want to thank you for what you continue to do, not just for Canada, but for girls and women around the world.

I thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Doctor.

Let's take a two-minute break and then we'll have the group of witnesses from the department come forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

I'd ask all of you to come to order.

I know we're running a little late, but as long as the witnesses bear with us, we'll make sure that we get a chance to hear them. Again, we are meeting pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) for a study on women, peace, and security.

Our witnesses this afternoon are officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development. They are Tamara Guttman, director general, stabilization and reconstruction task force; Julie Shouldice, acting director general, social development; and Anthony Anderson, senior policy adviser, conflict policy and security coherence secretariat, stabilization and reconstruction task force. Mr. Anderson has the longest title.

I understand Ms. Guttman is going to start and will make the presentation on behalf of our officials, and then we'll get right into the questions.

So Tamara, fire away.

[Tamara Guttman, Director General, Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much everyone for having us here today.

I am truly honoured, especially so on International Women's Day. It is a real pleasure. Thank you.

I welcome the opportunity to address the committee on behalf of Global Affairs Canada on the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security. As the chair has mentioned, I'm very pleased to be joined by my colleague Julie Shouldice, the director general of social development at Global Affairs, as well as Tony Anderson, who is our senior adviser on this issue.

The implementation of the WPS agenda by the government is very much a partnership effort among Global Affairs, the Department of National Defence, and the RCMP, as well as, of course, our important civil society partners and those in the international arena. I understand that the committee will hear from representatives of National Defence and the RCMP at a later date on their program activities, which we hope will provide a more comprehensive picture of all the work the government is doing.

I'm going to offer a few initial comments guided by the topics that the committee submitted to us, and then we will be very pleased to respond to questions.

The international WPS agenda is defined by United Nations Security resolution 1325, adopted in the year 2000, and seven subsequent resolutions. The WPS agenda recognizes that women and girls face challenges in situations of armed conflict and other emergencies. Women and men often experience conflict and other emergency situations in very different ways. Further, women and girls very often suffer inordinately because of their culturally assigned gender roles.

Sexual violence is often perpetrated on them, including as a tactic of war and terror, as we unfortunately continue to see in the Middle East and Africa. The abuse of the human rights of women and girls is exacerbated in conflict and emergencies, including elevated levels of child, early and forced marriage.

Women may experience discrimination or violence that limits their access to humanitarian assistance. In particular, survivors of sexual violence may have difficulty in accessing necessary medical, socio-economic and psychological services.

In conflict-affected and fragile societies, women frequently do not have opportunities for meaningful roles, in particular on peace and security matters, where they could be active agents to prevent and resolve the conflicts that affect their lives and well-being.

The solutions proposed by the Security Council resolutions on WPS are compelling and quite simple in concept:

First, ensure that women and men are given equal opportunities, even if this means that different treatment must be used to achieve those ends.

Second, empower women to participate meaningfully in the economic, political, and social lives of their communities and countries, including on issues of peace and security.

Third, fully respect the rights of women and girls.

Fourth, prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence by assisting women and girls with reintegration into their communities, by giving them access to justice, and by holding perpetrators to account.

Finally, apply gender-based analysis to all conflict prevention and resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation activities, to develop solutions that are more likely to lead to sustainable peace and prosperity.

Gender equality, respect for human rights, justice, and the empowerment of women and girls, as well as men and boys, are core Canadian values and ones for which we are globally recognized. Canada is well placed to take a leadership role in international efforts to promote and implement the WPS agenda, and we do. We have a long record of support for this agenda, beginning with drafting Resolution 1325, which was passed in the year 2000, when we were a member of the Security Council.

Let me list a few examples of what we are doing now to take a leadership role in the UN.

Canada initiated and continues to chair in New York the Group of Friends of Women, Peace and Security, where we play a coordinating role among interested member states, civil society, and the Security Council on these matters.

We also chair the working subcommittee of the General Assembly committee 34 on UN peacekeeping, where we coordinate the agenda, including for WPS issues, and take strong national positions, including in support of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

Canada leads in the drafting of the annual resolution of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on the elimination of all violence against women, which includes language on violence against women and girls in the context of conflict and emergency situations.

We provide financial assistance for the work of UN women and to the office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms. Zainab Bangura. Members may recall that we invited Ms. Bangura to address the anti-ISIL coalition conference that took place in Quebec City last July, where she gave compelling testimony on the results of her recently completed mission to study sexual violence in conflict in the Middle East.

I will also quickly mention that Canada leads efforts to eliminate child, early, and forced marriage, CEFM, which is exacerbated in conflict, emergency, and displacement situations. Since October 2013, we have committed over $80 million in programming to end CEFM.

The challenges in implementing this agenda in conflict, post-conflict and other emergency situations are enduring. Some are all too obvious, including the horrendous abuse of women and girls at the hands of war lords and terrorist groups such as ISIL and Boko Haram.

Often, social and cultural norms in weak and fragile states discriminate against women and deny them access to services, resources and justice, and such practices are often embedded in national law. These factors can combine to deny women agency in peace and reconciliation processes.

Discrimination and lack of access are often even worse for women of certain groups, such as indigenous or rural women. In addition, national security forces themselves can be perpetrators of sexual violence and this can create a culture of impunity for such offences.

Canada does have a range of tools and programs that we use to address these issues in situations of concern. The stabilization and reconstruction task force, or START, in Global Affairs Canada, which I head up, develops Canadian WPS policy and coordinates our diplomatic efforts to promote this agenda. We also run the global peace and security fund and support the work of various organizations focused on addressing the impact of sexual and gender-based violence. For example, in ISIL-affected areas in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, we have funded a range of projects to provide support to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence and to aid in investigations of related crimes.

We are also, for example, improving camp security for internally displaced persons and refugees, especially women and girls in northern Iraq. We are working to empower women as active participants in peace processes, and we are very pleased to be able to support the recently launched UN-led peace negotiations for Syria by providing expert female advisers to assist the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee.

We also facilitate the deployment of Canadian police officers from across Canada to United Nations and other peace operations through the Canadian police arrangement. I am pleased to note that currently, 25% of Canadian police deployed through the CPA are female, which surpasses the UN target of 20%.

Since 2014, Canadian police have helped to deliver training to women police peacekeeping candidates in a range of developing countries in Africa. We also deploy to international peace operations in women, peace, and security related roles. For example, right now there is a Canadian female police officer serving as a gender adviser in Ukraine on their police reform.

In Haiti, Canadian police have been delivering training alongside Norway to improve the Haitian national police's capacity to investigate cases related to sexual and gender-based violence.

Let me briefly mention that Canadian humanitarian assistance includes the provision of protection and assistance specific to the needs of women and girls in emergency situations, such as those affected by the crises in Syria and Iraq. Canadian development assistance also addresses gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Canada works with experienced partners in countries such as Haiti, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to address the impacts of conflict on women and girls, to prevent and respond to sexual violence and to strengthen the capacity of women to participate in political and peace-building processes.

Canada is working with the United Nations to strengthen its response to sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers. We encourage greater transparency in the handling of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse, and urge all troop and police contributors to uphold their obligations to investigate misconduct. We have warmly welcomed the very recent appointment of Ms. Jane Holl Lute as the UN special coordinator on SEA, sexual exploitation and abuse.

This problem affects the whole of the international community, and that includes Canada, unfortunately. This committee may have noted the UN report released last week on special measures for protection from SEA in which two Canadian cases are listed. We have an obligation to insist that peacekeepers, including our own, are held to account for their actions.

Finally, the principal framework that guides our WPS activities is the Canadian national action plan for women, peace and security. The plan calls for public annual implementation progress reports. Three such reports have been tabled in Parliament, and the fourth is in preparation. These are all publicly available on the Global Affairs website.

We are very pleased today that ministers Dion, Bibeau, and Freeland announced in their joint statement for International Women's Day that the Canadian national action plan is going to be renewed. We will begin work immediately with our full range of partners both inside and outside of government to update the C-NAP to reflect both the world and the Canada of 2016. We will get these consultations under way, including civil society, and of course, Parliament.

There remains much more work to be done, but I will end my statement there and allow time for questions.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Ms. Guttman.

I understand we're having a little technical problem, and you'll have to turn your microphone on yourself. For some reason, it's not set right. So if you're going to do some talking, turn your microphone on, and then turn it off.

We'll start with Mr. Allison, from the Conservative Party.

Dean.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Guttman, thank you for being here. It's great to have you back.

You talk in your presentation about the challenge of implementing the agenda in conflict and post-conflict areas. I have only two questions today. This will be the first one, and then we can address the second one, so take your time.

How do you identify programs, given the nature of how difficult it can be through peace negotiations in all these troubled areas? What goes into choosing how it happens, and how do you make it happen in what must be very difficult circumstances?

[Tamara Guttman]

That's an excellent question. I wish there were a straightforward answer.

I think it very much depends on the type of intervention that's being considered, whether it's an urgent humanitarian intervention, a long-term capacity-building or developmental project, or a stabilization effort. This last is what my program does, and it's more short-term to mid-term. It varies greatly.

In some cases, we may seek to work with other international partners or with major or local international organizations such as local NGOs to deliver a particular service or form of support. In some cases, we may be guided by recommendations coming from the United Nations. Often we receive or we solicit proposals for projects from partners. I would turn to my development colleague to speak more about how that works. It varies quite greatly.

In the case of Syria, where we have supported the participation of women in the recently launched peace negotiations, we were fortunate to have a project brought to our attention. I believe it was brought to us by our network in the field, and we were able to respond to that quite readily. It varies widely.

If there is a particular instance that you'd like me to try to describe, I would be happy to do so.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Afghanistan certainly was a country of focus, an area in which we spent a lot of money over the years.

Would you talk to us a bit about the process there? We've seen increased participation, but how has it really been? One of the focuses was engaging women in education. Could you talk about where we are with that now?

[Tamara Guttman]

I will do my best. I have to admit, I don't have a lot of details on our work in Afghanistan.

I can give one example, which is that we fund support to the Afghan national defence and security forces. This is a major commitment by the Government of Canada over a three-year period. Part of that funding goes to capacity building for police and military, but a part of it is dedicated to supporting the integration of women into those forces, along with gender sensitivity training. That's one example.

I might turn to my development colleague to speak more to development-oriented elements, like education.

I will add that gender is a factor in all our programming decisions. Whether it's development or stabilization, whatever type of work we're doing, we look at it through the lens of gender, through the lens of the women's peace and security agenda to make sure that it's [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[Julie Shouldice, Acting Director General, Social Development, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Just to supplement what my colleague has said, when we look at the case of Afghanistan, promoting and protecting human rights remains one of Canada's key priorities, with a particular focus on advocating for the rights of women and girls. That's reflected as part of our development assistance.

One of the key areas has been improved access to safe, quality, basic education for women and girls and the protection of women's and girls' rights. In 2001 there were effectively no girls enrolled in school in Afghanistan, and now there are 8.5 million children, 39% of whom are girls. We look at improved access to health services for women, which have had significant impacts in areas like the reduction of pregnancy and birth-related deaths or the increase of political participation by women in Afghanistan. We've looked at some of the key areas where we can have an impact and we continue to program along those same lines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Kent.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I have one quick question.

You mentioned the two CEA cases under investigation. Given the issues that are still under investigation within DND and the RCMP involving gender issues such as harassment, what is the training preparation specifically? Is it offered individually by those agencies and the armed forces, or do you contribute to it through your leadership in the area of sensitization and so forth?