I want to thank the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for inviting me today. I also extend to you my appreciation for your willingness to address the protection of vulnerable groups currently under threat around the world.
The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention is a Toronto-based NGO that works to prevent mass atrocities, including the crime of genocide, through direct co-operation with threatened communities and the innovative use of technology.
We operate in several countries, most notably in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where we use new methods of employing the existing telecommunications infrastructure to prevent intercommunal violence, especially that directed by extremists toward the Muslim minority groups such as the Rohingya. Elsewhere we have worked in Kenya's Tana Delta and Lamu regions, which are plagued both by intercommunal violence and terror attacks by the Islamist Al-Shabaab militia based in Somalia. We also operate a small fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles to support civilian protection and other beneficial applications as part of a broader effort to advance the field of humanitarian aerospace.
One of the most challenging issues to overcome when working in unstable environments is that of accessibility. That means not just the ability of organizations to bring assistance where it is needed, but also the ability of threatened communities themselves to participate in the assistance programs and benefit from them.
The question of how one bridges the gap caused by disarray and uncertainty caused by violence and exacerbated by geography is a difficult one to answer. In our experience at least part of the solution is to investigate the role of underutilized information and communications infrastructure already in place and to build capable objective-driven systems on top of it.
Information when seen and used in a humanitarian or a development context can help in overcoming barriers, making smart decisions, quickly identifying focal areas, and assessing risks. This is representative of a growing recognition that information itself can be a form of humanitarian aid, since people require high quality information to make effective decisions about their lives, especially those living in difficult and dangerous conditions. Without putting the right information into the right peoples hands, delivery of every other form of assistance, such as food, medicine, shelter, and protection, is going to be less effective.
One area of particular concern for us is the regions occupied by or in the vicinity of the Islamic State group, and specifically their targeting of the Yazidi, Christian, and Shia communities. As recently as January of this year, one of our board members has been active in northern Iraq during a fact-finding mission and has highlighted some of the barriers to action, as well as some of the opportunities for assisting vulnerable groups where accessibility is an issue.
The barriers are most often institutional, primarily relating to rampant corruption combined with an understandably fractured power infrastructure. While these conditions can hinder work throughout the region, they are especially salient in places where minority communities are distrustful of regional governments and their representatives. This is certainly the case with the Yazidis in Iraq.
We have assessed the communication infrastructure, and the region is capable of supporting systems that circumvent power structures and connect outreach efforts directly to residents. Such systems can be used for extending the reach of Canadian government assistance efforts, broadcasting information to physically unreachable populations, and facilitating coordination.
It's also important to recognize that Christian, Shia, and particularly Yazidi communities currently face an existential threat at the hands of groups such as the Islamic State, but just as their persecution did not begin with this extremist organization, neither will it end with them. I encourage the Government of Canada to commit to a long-term view of assistance for marginalized communities in Iraq and the Levant.
I also encourage the Government of Canada to investigate innovative approaches to mitigating the extreme targeting of marginalized communities, which is unique in the new challenges that it brings and requires creative responses. Conventional methods alone may not be sufficient to fully address these crises, but they can have a greater impact when supported by new tools available to us, such as widely accessible mobile telecommunications and open source software.
Canada will be more impactful if it adopts and adapts these same tools when responding to crises created by those who persecute vulnerable minorities and threaten their very existence.
Thank you.