Thank you so much to the committee for holding these hearings, receiving these presentations from a range of civil society representatives, and, of course, for inviting Human Rights Watch to present.
Human Rights Watch is an independent non-governmental organization that monitors and reports on compliance with international human rights standards in more than 90 countries around the world. For over 20 years we have investigated and documented violations of women's rights in conflict and post-conflict settings, in communities and countries as diverse as the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Somalia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, and the list goes on.
Before proceeding with my presentation, I'd like to flag that Human Rights Watch is a member of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security in New York, which will be presenting to you as well, and that we work closely with the Institute for Inclusive Security and many of the other NGO colleagues who will be providing you with information throughout this hearing process.
I'd like to make today a few points specifically on Canada's international leadership on women, peace, and security, and why it is important for your national action plan and for all of your international engagement on this issue to support women's rights globally. These recommendations include the necessity of accountability for violations of women’s rights; the importance of services, medical and psychosocial, for survivors of sexual violence and other rights violations; the key importance of women's participation in peace and security decision-making, as Jackie has flagged; the necessary reforms to international peacekeeping, including tackling sexual exploitation and abuse; and, finally, support to women human rights defenders, particularly in situations of conflict and post-conflict.
As Jackie has noted, Canada is in a particularly good position to champion women’s rights internationally. This includes, as she has said, its role of chairing the group of friends of Women, Peace and Security in New York, a leadership role that many of us appreciate here. Canada should put women’s rights at the centre of its campaign for the UN Security Council and its work in other international fora. You'll hear a briefing from the executive coordinator of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security next week, but I just want to flag some of the research and what it's shown, which is that the UN Security Council, amongst other international bodies such as the G-8, remains committed on paper, committed in rhetoric, but does not necessarily adhere to their own obligations on women's rights in their daily work. In the UN Security Council alone, briefings on country situations are often absent any information or analysis, let alone recommendations, on women's rights violations and what the UN and other international actors can do.
So what should Canada be doing in the international stage?
First, promote accountability for sexual violence and other rights violations. As a member of the International Criminal Court and a supporter of international and national justice, Canada is well placed to help tackle the scourge of impunity and to secure justice for the victims of these crimes. Human Rights Watch has documented the impunity for sexual violence in many conflicts around the world, with the case of DRC being illustrated. Horrific levels of rape and other forms of sexual violence in that country have plagued eastern DRC for almost two decades.
At the international level, the International Criminal Court's conviction of the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo indeed a victory for sexual violence victims and a stark warning to senior commanders who turn a blind eye while their troops rape and commit other atrocities. Congolese authorities at the national level have carried out an increasing number of arrests and prosecutions for rape; however, the vast majority of perpetrators remain unpunished. Our recent research on the so-called Minova trials shows that, despite international attention, there's often a failure to deliver justice for either the victims or the accused in these cases.
Canada should press for survivors of sexual violence and other forms of gender-based violence to have full access to the range of essential medical and psychosocial care, which includes economic and social support. Canada can support this both at the forthcoming World Humanitarian Summit and can heighten the work of CIDA in this issue.
Our research has documented many examples of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict and emergency situations around the world and just how stark and dire their need for these services are. This includes women with disabilities in conflict situations, who also face discrimination and additional risk and vulnerability because of those disabilities.
Sexual and gender-based violence has acute and long-term physical, psychological, and social consequences. We've seen that with a great number of reports, including our own research on the attacks on Yazidi women. Unfortunately, to date, the necessary medical and psychosocial service provision for the survivors of these crimes is inconsistent, if forthcoming at all. Our recent research on Kenya and the political and electoral violence in that country in 2007 and 2008 shows just how long term the effects of these attacks can be.
Canada should press for greatly increased investment to address the health needs for survivors of sexual violence in conflict, and press governments to invest in comprehensive emergency health services, including medical treatment for injuries, emergency contraception, safe and legal abortion, and trauma counselling.
The next recommendation, as Jackie has highlighted, is that Canada should champion the participation of women in peace and security decision-making, including in the leadership of centres for those who have been displaced, for refugees, for those making conflict-resolution efforts, and in post-conflict reform efforts. Again, this is one of the areas in which we've seen a great deal of rhetoric and not sufficient action by international actors.
Women are often subject to hostile work environments. Women human rights defenders often face grave risks when trying to heighten and support the work and voice of women and raise controversial issues around women's rights in conflict. Canada should press for women's full participation in all these efforts to create and maintain peace, and support efforts to safeguard women's security in post-conflict elections, in referendums, constitutional drafting, and reform processes. This includes promotion and protection of women candidates, voters, election workers, and women's human rights defenders.
The next recommendation is regarding international peacekeeping. Canada has a particular role to play here, particularly when the UN and other actors in the international community are making an effort to tackle the scourge of sexual exploitation and abuse. Over the past decade there have been many allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in the missions in Central African Republic, Haiti, Somalia, and the DRC. In 2014 we published a detailed report on sexual exploitation and abuse by African Union peacekeeping forces in Somalia, and more recently we documented cases of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.
In all efforts to address this scourge, priority must be given to the security and well-being of survivors, including through promoting best practices as basic as maintaining confidentiality, minimizing repeated trauma from multiple interviews and, again, providing and ensuring rapid access to medical and psychosocial care. Canada and other governments should be pressing for a major overhaul to boost accountability mechanisms, ensuring that there are clear policies and training in this area, and for independent investigative mechanisms in an effort to bring judicial redress for those who have had these crimes committed against them.
Finally, Canada should push for better support for human rights defenders, those on the front line in dealing with sexual and gender-based violence and those who are promoting national legal reforms to address and adhere to women's rights obligations. Human rights defenders assist survivors of sexual violence, expose abuse and impunity, and press their own governments to tackle these problems more effectively. Many do this at great risk to themselves.
Human Rights Watch works with many remarkable human rights defenders around the world, and our recent work on women human rights defenders in Sudan documents the efforts by Sudanese authorities to silence women who are involved in protests, involved in rights campaigns and other public action, and who provide social services and legal aid. Women engaged in these efforts are targeted with a range of abuses, from rape and rape threats to deliberate efforts to tar their reputations. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender and inter-sex people are often at particular threat of sexual violence in conflict, as our research has indicated in Iraq and in Syria.
On this point, I really hope that Canada will press for greater international support for women human rights defenders and for human rights defenders writ large. This includes more emergency and quick-impact funding to support efforts to document violations in the middle of conflict, and more support to local lawyers to help secure local justice for crimes of sexual violence. Canada can also press for measures to protect human rights defenders from threats, intimidation, and violence.
On that point, I would like to thank you once again and I'm looking forward to our discussion here today.