Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to all members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for this opportunity to speak to you about the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the over 80 million who are within the mandate of the United Nations Refugee Agency.
These 80 million include 26 million asylum seekers and refugees and 47 million people displaced in their own countries. Perhaps the most powerful illustration of the impact of COVID-19 on people of concern to UNHCR is demonstrated by the fact that this year the agency has had the lowest number of resettlements in 20 years—a historic low—with as many as 20,000 departures this year, barely a third of the usual resettlement numbers.
To begin, I'd like to thank Canada for the recent announcement of an increase of 4,300 places for resettlement and for private sponsorship over the next couple of years, and also for Canada's support for COVID responses with very generous additional funding for humanitarian and development work, with a special focus, as we will see in a moment, particularly and importantly on women and girls.
UNHCR very much appreciates Canada's leadership throughout the pandemic, being one of the first countries to restart resettlement departures after the temporary suspension of the program under the influence of COVID. Canada also, importantly, employed technology such as remote interviews—and of course we're doing this now—for settlement cases to ensure continuity of the program.
Canada has also pioneered labour mobility to refugees as a complementary or regular pathway to settlement. Canada supported education pathways through a sponsorship model, and in a very significant initiative has developed the global refugee sponsorship initiative.
This is by way of saying that the continued leadership of Canada in this time of COVID is vital.
The impact of COVID on the lives of so many refugees and displaced people has been a pandemic exacerbating and compounding long and pre-existing crises, being a protection crisis that in its magnitude and probable lasting effect reflects the root causes of global movements throughout the world. People flee violence and persecution from international and intercommunal conflict, poverty, inequality and gender discrimination, environmental degradation and climate change. The numbers are now unprecedented and rising fast.
When so many vulnerable people are disproportionately affected by COVID, you might reasonably ask why we should focus on refugees and other displaced people when nations are rightly concerned to protect their own citizens and residents. An answer lies in the fact that displaced people are especially vulnerable and are the most at risk in the communities where they find protection. They rely on the informal economy. Without legal status, refugees are the first to lose their jobs, to suffer eviction and to become homeless.
Since the start of the pandemic, UNHCR has received consistently alarming reports of sharp increases in gender-based violence, trafficking, sexual exploitation, child pregnancies and marriages, xenophobia and stigmatization.
Eighty per cent of the world's refugees are hosted by poor and developing countries where health systems are rapidly becoming overwhelmed and people live in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Older people and those with disabilities are less able to get medical services in lockdowns, and displaced children are more likely not to return to schools once they reopen, especially girls, setting back advances hard won over recent years.
In addition to the social and economic impacts of COVID, we've seen that at the height of the pandemic 168 countries closed their borders—nearly 90 making no exception for asylum seekers, risking refoulement to danger. We've also seen push-backs of boats carrying asylum seekers with denial of rescues at sea or of disembarkation of those who have been rescued.
UNHCR has been clear in saying that a nation has a responsibility both to protect the health of its citizens and to protect asylum seekers. One does not exclude the other.
I'll conclude by saying that a solution lies in the global compact on refugees to build back better, as the Secretary-General has proposed. The compact makes a very simple principle—equitable sharing of the responsibility of displaced and stateless people. May I suggest, Mr. Chair, that it provides a road map for the future, one that, in this globalized world, we understand we must act together on, and we applaud Canada's efforts as a leader in its humanitarian responses.
Thank you very much.