Foreign Affairs Committee on March 7th, 2023

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I would still argue they're universal and they transcend sovereignty.

[Lucy Akello]

Yes, they do.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

There is a bill called the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that was presented in your Parliament. Are you supportive of that bill?

[Lucy Akello]

That bill came in Parliament. I've yet to read it because when it came, I was away. At the right time, I will make my decision. It is still very premature.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

This bill allows for the extradition of gay people from other countries—people who are living their lives with the protection of human rights in Canada. It would allow for their extradition and for them to be punished and serve up to 10 years for simply being a lesbian, a gay man or a bisexual person.

It also has definitions of homosexuality that are outdated and have no bearing in science, in religion or in law. As a Christian pastor, it is an offensive bill.

I would hope you read it very carefully to understand that it would isolate Uganda from the rest of the world. In Africa, 22 countries are now moving towards full rights for lesbian women and gay men. I am wondering what your caucus could do to do that.

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

I have a point of order.

I share Mr. Oliphant's views on this particular bill. However, this is not on the topic of the issue we're here to raise. Even in a person's time, there is an expectation that they stay on topic. I have been chastised for that from time to time in the past—and successfully chastised, as Ms. Bendayan points out. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so to speak.

With respect, this is an important issue—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The bill is very clear that it limits lesbians' rights—their health and human rights. Our study is on sexual and reproductive health and the rights of women globally. That includes the rights of lesbian women who are being discriminated against in this bill.

My hope is that this bill doesn't pass and Uganda chooses to be with the world community and recognize human rights—certainly, the rights of Ugandans who live outside their country and have the right to live under the laws of Canada and not face extradition.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Ms. Akello, you have approximately 20 seconds to respond.

[Lucy Akello]

Thank you.

I was invited here to talk about the topic of sexual reproductive health for women, globally, and I have done that. If you want to talk about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, we will talk about it when my sovereign nation of Uganda has made a decision on it. Rest assured that no one is going to be killed, because every life matters.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

The clerk has asked to do a sound check for the floor.

[Dr. Alvaro Bermejo]

Is it any better? I can hear you well.

I'm so sorry I'm not there face to face. It would have been much easier if I were there with Elizabeth and Lucy. I'm sorry about that.

[The Clerk]

Your sound is all right.

Thank you, sir. You'll be able to answer questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much for that.

We will now go to Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Bergeron, you have four minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to point out that I'll be sharing my time with my colleague from Shefford.

Good morning, ladies and gentleman. Thank you so much for joining us today and providing your insight.

Ms. Sully, you touched on this in your presentation, but I feel that given the testimony we've heard today, you must be more explicit about the consequences people face when they don't have easy access to adequate contraception or suitable abortion services.

Could you enlighten the committee as to what your organization has observed with respect to these consequences around the world?

[Dr. Elizabeth Sully]

Thank you for the question. As I understood it, you want to understand what we're doing to address gaps in access to sexual and reproductive health services and, in particular, to family planning.

We are a research and policy organization. All of our work is through partnerships. We are always following the lead of our country partners, whether they be researchers or advocates. What do they see as the priorities for evidence generation, policy and advocacy within their own countries? We follow a country-led approach.

What we see is this: The countries that have the highest rates of unintended pregnancy are often also those that restrict contraceptive access and have higher rates of abortion. The restriction of abortion often goes hand in hand with lack of access to family planning services. Make those available, so people can prevent those pregnancies.

One thing I want to touch on is this: It's not just about access alone. I thought Lucy Akello touched on an important point around contraceptive side effects. We see women reporting that as one of the reasons for not using methods of contraception. It's about access and the methods available to them. They always need to have free and informed choice on a range of methods available at a place near them, in their communities.

That should always be how we put forward contraceptive programming. We often interpret the gaps as being just about access. Access is a huge part of it. Financing is a huge part of it, but it's also about information. That's where comprehensive sexuality education comes in. People need to understand what is available to them and what those services are.

There's a range of steps we need to take. Where Canada can step in is on the financing side to support advocates who are pushing, within their countries, to expand access to services in order to ensure there is comprehensive sexuality education with the full comprehensive package of services provided.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

As you may know, the Ethiopian government has signed a peace agreement with the Tigray People's Liberation Front. However, based on reports that have reached the BBC, women continue to be sexually assaulted, particularly in Tigray.

Do you have any information about the situation in Tigray right now?

[Dr. Elizabeth Sully]

Thank you for that question.

We don't have great data, because it is hardest to collect data where there are humanitarian emergencies and fragile contexts. Over the period in which the most recent conflict erupted in Tigray, we were actually collecting data in Ethiopia on a national study. We were not able to get evidence from the Tigray region to understand what was happening—both in terms of provision of SRH services and health facilities and in women's needs and use of contraceptive methods and other SRH services—at that time.

I think we know broadly that during humanitarian emergencies the SRH needs are greatest and that SRH services should be part of primary care. They are often forgotten and not included as part of the humanitarian response, yet the needs are greater. There are high levels of sexual violence. We know that is the case. People have their access to health facilities and to services interrupted, so we need to be including SRH services as part of the humanitarian response.

The Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises has put forward a minimum initial service package that really lays out how, in that moment of responding in a humanitarian emergency, to put forward a full package of SRH services to meet those needs.

I think we need to stop neglecting this as part of a humanitarian response in Tigray as well as in other conflicts and fragile contexts.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

We now go to Ms. McPherson.

You have four minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for your testimony.

Mr. Alvaro Bermejo, it's nice to see you. I had the opportunity to meet with you last summer. I'm sad that we weren't able to hear your testimony. I'm curious to know if you would be able to send to the analysts the testimony that you had planned, so that they have it to add to the report that we'll be preparing at this committee.

I want to start with a question for Ms. Sully, if I could.

We spoke to our SRHR experts in Poland, which is one of the countries that has very restrictive access to SRHR for women. There has been a massive movement within the community to push back on that. I think we all can be very proud of that.

What I would like to hear about from you is how we see more countries liberalizing their abortion laws over the past few decades. From your perspective, what factors have been driving this change?

[Dr. Elizabeth Sully]

Thank you.

Yes, I mentioned that there have been 60 countries that have liberalized their laws to some extent or another since the ICBD conference in 1994.

To talk about the African context, there, the Maputo protocol was signed in 2003. Article 14(2)(c) lays out the legal grounds on which the African Union member states have agreed that they want abortion to be accessible within the African Union. We've seen 21 countries in the region liberalize their laws to some extent to meet the Maputo protocol, with seven of those countries going beyond the conditions outlined within that protocol.

There, we're looking at African country-led efforts to protect lives, expand rights and reduce the maternal mortality crisis that is happening across sub-Saharan Africa. Within the countries, those efforts often are being led by politicians, clinicians and bureaucrats who understand the health consequences of unsafe abortion. The latest law to pass was in Benin. There were two members of Parliament who were OB/GYNs and who saw first-hand the consequences of unsafe abortion.

Where we're seeing the laws change, it is from people who understand the reality on the ground. Sometimes it is against their own moral beliefs, but it is what they think should be policy and law because they understand what the implications are of limiting access to abortion.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

That's one of the questions that I wanted to get some clarity on from you. You talked about the fact that putting legislation in place doesn't reduce abortion: It reduces safe abortion.

Disproportionately, the people who are impacted by that tend to be poor, and they tend to be from racialized communities. It impacts different people differently. Can you talk a bit about what that looks like?

[Dr. Elizabeth Sully]

Yes. I mean, I think we see that in the United States, where I live right now as a Canadian.

I live in the United States and, with the abortion restrictions there, we see that who it harms the most are those who don't have the means to travel, to go and pay for services and access them in other places. That happens internationally. People find access to safe abortion services if they have the means and resources to do so. It is poor women who are struggling to meet their service needs who are most impacted by these laws.

When you look at who is having abortions, you see that these are married women: mothers who have children and cannot afford to have additional children in their houses. There are a lot of reasons why people have abortions. I think it's those who are struggling the most and need access to these services who have the hardest time reaching them.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have very little time, but could you talk a little bit about the impacts on school-age women and girls who are not able to access reproductive rights and health care?