Thank you.
Honorary members of the standing committee, I would like to thank you first for the depth and attention that you are giving to this issue. My name is Jess, as I've mentioned, and I’m the executive director of the MATCH International Women's Fund.
This review is timely. Just last week, UNICEF reported on the 98 young women in the Central African Republic who were sexually tortured by UN peacekeepers. Just last month, globally recognized human rights, indigenous, and environmental activist, Berta Cáceres, was gunned down in her own home in Honduras. Berta had four children.
The stakes are high for women in conflict. I am here today to share stories from our partners around the world in the hopes that their experiences will be considered as you review Canada's foreign policy as it relates to peace and security.
This is an area where my colleagues and I hope to see the Canadian government take immediate action. I know those sitting with me today agree that the world welcomes Canadian leadership in this area, an area that is so fundamentally tied to the universality of human rights.
The MATCH fund has supported women's movements globally for 40 years. Our funding comes entirely from individual Canadian donors. We channel these resources directly into women’s organizations that are led by women for women and girls in more than 25 countries. We believe that brave women working at the grassroots are the most catalytic in bringing about change for women and girls.
I would like to share with you this afternoon two short examples from our partners in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to help illustrate the realities for the women working at the grassroots to bring about peace.
Nubia Sanchez is the director of our Colombian organization, working with women affected by sexual violence, displacement, and forced disappearance after decades of armed conflict. Over the past year, the organization has directly supported more than 200 women with legal assistance and psychological support. As you can imagine, her organization's work to uncover the truth and demand justice is seen as a threat to conflict parties.
At 9 a.m. last Thursday, Nubia received an anonymous phone call. I can share with you an excerpt from Nubia's message to us that we received from her last week. A man, who did not identify himself, called her and said, “You are Nubia, right? Well, it doesn't really matter. If you aren't, I am leaving this message anyway. Stop agitating about the conflict victims here in Tumaco or there will be trouble. I know your son. It would be really sad if something bad happened to the kid. I don't want to see you around anymore”.
Before Nubia could say anything, the man hung up. This is just one of a series of well-documented threats. No progress has been made in the way of investigation. Colombia's national protection unit has not provided any additional minimal security measures, like surveillance cameras or reinforcement for their doors.
By contrast, Julienne Lusenge engages local women's groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She works with them in conflict prevention, peace building, and supports more than 1.7 million women who were raped by armed combatants. Sexual violence in conflict in the DRC has received international attention with the 2014 U.K. summit, which was attended by many governments, including Canada.
In addition, just a few months ago, Julienne was asked to testify at the UN Security Council. Yet Julienne and women leaders like her still haven't received stable funding for their necessary efforts. Julienne's work is tiring enough. She tells me that she dedicates most of her time raising $5,000 here and $5,000 there when hundreds of women come to her every week to talk about or receive services for the rape they have experienced.
These women highlight the issues I bring before you today: first, the overall funding picture for grassroots women's rights organizations; second, government accountability for involving and funding women in peace processes; and third, the importance of the role of and protection for the women human rights defenders who are most at risk.
Allow me to expand on these three critical issues. Let me first address the issue of funding for local women's organizations. Local women's organizations, just like here in Canada, know their context best and can creatively rethink approaches to disrupting power dynamics and demanding state accountability.
They often do this with volunteers and on shoestring budgets. The average annual income of a grassroots women's organization working in the global south is $20,000 U.S. a year. In sub-Saharan Africa, that figure drops to $12,000. Of these organizations, 48% never receive core funding for day-to-day necessities such as staffing, lights, the Internet, and security. Also, every month, one in five close their doors due to financial shortfalls. This is in spite of significant donor prioritization in the last decade for women and girls, whether for maternal and child health or economic empowerment initiatives.
Here is the challenge. Women working at the grassroots have not seen the financial impact of these high-level commitments because, in reality, women's organizations are often not eligible to apply for calls for proposals due to their smaller budget size and the funders' requirements for sophisticated operational and monitoring systems that don't align with the realities on the ground.
In addition, women's organizations often work across a range of intersectional issues. While the emphasis may be on supporting survivors of rape, many organizations often will be delivering integrated health programming, reproductive rights programming, and supporting leaders in how to engage in the peace process. This recent trend in project-based funding and a requirement for narrow deliverables have left these organizations often ineligible because of either their size or their broad community-based approach.
Herein lies the opportunity. Canada can be a leader in extending high-level commitments to women and girls beyond multilateral agencies and international organizations. According to Canada's most recent report to the OECD, the Canadian government allocated $5.19 million to women's organizations and institutions in 2013-14. If Canada were to expand development and humanitarian assistance to local organizations led by and for women working on the ground, this would significantly impact the essential work happening at the grassroots. This could be a national funding instrument that is accessible to women's rights organizations, as well as an earmarked funding mechanism within this for women's organizations that are working on peace and security issues.
I'd like to speak specifically about the importance of involving women in the peace process. Data on the women, peace, and security sector confirms that financial resources have fallen significantly short of government commitments. According to the OECD's DAC, only 2% of aid to the peace and security sector targeted gender equality as a principal objective. This is due to a lack of prioritization and, again, to the absence of aid tailored to reach grassroots groups.
Where is the opportunity here? Canada can build in regular, substantive consultations with civil society—like you are doing right now and I applaud you for that—within the country and internationally, that taps into civil society networks of women at the local level. This parliamentary hearing can be an annual event. Imagine the impact of concrete, regular consultations led by Canadian policy-makers with women in the field, with women peace builders, and with women's rights activists. I daresay that might qualify as feminist foreign policy.
Finally, I want to touch on the role of women human rights defenders and our obligation to protect them. Women, peace, and human rights activists often find themselves caught in the crossfire between armed groups and the state. These are ordinary people who work at great personal risk to defend the rights of their communities. Nubia Sanchez and Berta Cáceres are just two examples of women human rights defenders who work at the front lines and who face violent threats against themselves and their loved ones. They are often accused of treason. They and their families are threatened. It is a sad reality that they often pay with their lives. In 2015, 156 human rights defenders were killed or died in detention.
I implore the committee to see your efforts as essential to realizing human rights in practice and as a key contribution to the broader agenda of women, peace, and security that we are discussing today. That is the opportunity here. Women human rights defenders themselves tell us that it is not only about keeping them safe, but ultimately about sustaining the organizations and movements they are involved in so they can change the situations that put them at risk.
Canada has the opportunity to show leadership in the company of only a few other progressive nations, such as the Netherlands and Norway, and to demonstrate commitment to making the protection of human rights defenders a foreign policy priority.
This testimony would not be complete without stressing UNSC resolution 2122, which speaks to the importance of providing the full range of services to women affected by armed conflict, including life-saving measures for women when pregnancies result from rape.
As you can see, there are many opportunities, and I thank you for the opportunity to share some of those with you today.
There is no reason that Canada cannot be a foreign policy leader that funds women at the grassroots, that insists on the participation of local women at the peacemaking table, and that protects women human rights defenders in their important work.
Thank you.