Good afternoon, Chairperson and honourable members of Parliament.
Before I start my remarks, I will just state the waiver that I'm required to make as a UN official before you. My attendance today before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is in my capacity as special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. I'm here to provide an informal, unsworn oral briefing to the committee and nothing in my remarks should be understood as a waiver expressed or implied of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, its officials or experts on mission, pursuant to the 1946 convention.
During my remarks I will express my personal views and position on the effects of COVID-19 on children , and the use of exceptional and emergency powers, and specifically on the obligations of states, including Canada, with respect to the arbitrary detention of children detained in the al-Hol and Roj camps.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, the mandate I hold issued an early warning with a number of other special procedures colleagues on the misuse of exceptional powers, counterterrorism, security and broader regulations in the context of COVID-19. We were particularly concerned that measures taken would fundamentally affect the rights of men, women, boys and girls. I underscore that any measures taken to respond to the pandemic must be, under international law necessary, proportionate and non-discriminatory, given their potentially negative effect.
In addition to that statement and that work, the mandate I hold, with two leading NGOs, has created a global tracker on the use of exceptional powers around the globe in the context of COVID-19. Here we've been addressing and observing the scope and range of exceptional powers that are being used across the world.
Now we're all on our computers, we're all obviously dealing with the effects of the pandemic, but it remains clear that if we wake up the day after the pandemic and the rule of law and the protections that we have spent decades building for human rights and the rule of law have disintegrated, much more than health will have been lost during this really challenging period.
I want to underscore that what we are seeing with negative effects on children in many places is that emergency powers and exceptional law have been used in many contexts to consolidate government power, securitize government responses and undermine democratic process. Moreover, we're seeing extensive and expansive infringement on individual rights, including children's rights, that undermine society's challenge to affect the underlying conditions that are creating vulnerabilities to COVID.
And more than that, I think we should all be aware that the changes implemented during the pandemic, like emergency and exceptional powers around the world, have a tendency to persist and become permanent.
In particular, I want to highlight the widespread use of data tracking, including the most sensitive data including in relation to children's biometric health data, in some contexts without any protections or sufficient protections on storage, use or transfer.
I'm also particularly concerned that we're seeing extensive use of counterterrorism practice as the means of addressing the pandemic in multiple national contexts. What that does, as other special procedures mandates have highlighted, is exacerbate discriminatory patterns of abuse by security services and agencies that primarily work in this arena that have little or no experience or relevant experience of working in a health context.
As we know, epidemiological evidence across a number of states reveals that COVID-19 is causing disproportionate deaths among racialized minorities and other historically vulnerable groups. Consider then the proposition that the tools of the surveillance state and the use of force capacity by states will be further mobilized against those communities that experience ongoing trust and harm deficits in relation to the security sector.
Let me now turn to the issue of the complex humanitarian situation and the particular challenges of protection in the context of COVID-19 for the most vulnerable in Syria, specifically northeast Syria. Last week my office, with 12 other mandate holders and two working groups of the United Nations Human Rights Council, issued a communication to 57 states, including Canada, urging them to repatriate women and children from the squalid camps in northeast Syria. We expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian and security situation in al-Hol and Roj.
I have set out with my fellow special rapporteurs the dire humanitarian conditions in the camp and the need for a collective action response to a collective problem.
This is a list that no state should want to be on, and in that regard I include Canada. Thousands of people, including children, are exposed to violence, exploitation, abuse and deprivation in conditions that, in our view, meet the standard of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment under international law.
Let me also be clear that unless individuals are returned, the need for victims of terrorism to have a clear accountability for the harms they have experienced will not be met as there is absolutely zero prospect of a meaningful, fair trial in that part of the world.
Let me close by saying—and I'm happy to take questions—that the communication issued to the government highlighted a data collection exercise that was undertaken on camp nationals, including Canadian women and children last year. We are deeply concerned about that exercise and the evidence of the information that may have been gathered and its sharing with security services.
There is a solution, and we are seeing many states engage that solution by returning their nationals. Unfortunately Canada is not one of those countries, and I urge the government and this parliamentary committee to focus its immediate attention on the need to ensure that Canada is a leader in this area, not a state that sits on a list of shame in the failure to return its women and children home.
Thank you.