Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think one point we can't go away from here is the fact that in these countries, rape is a crime of shame. It's used to taint women who then have insulted the man because of that inequality in the relationship. I think we have to approach this situation very cautiously, because all of us become impassioned by such conversation. Even our sensibilities are assaulted by considering what happens to women and children and young boys in those countries. As Canadians we tend to look for easy answers to questions. These are far more complex.
I'll use a personal example. Sharia law was raised here a few moments ago. I spent six months in Saudi Arabia in 1979, and you could blatantly see the cultural differences of the men and women there. I had an interpreter in my office who had been assigned to the American military for 16 years. He sounded very well educated, and was a very personable, very likeable man. We were talking about the very point of where women, his wife in particular, were situated, and I was very struck by his answer. He said, “My father and mother are first, because I come from them; my brother, because I share his blood; my children, because they share my blood, and my sons carry my name.” If you see me choking up a little bit, it's because next he told me, “Fourth is my car, and fifth is my wife.” When I asked him why in the world he would put his wife after his car, he said, “Everybody needs transportation, and anybody can buy a wife.”
Now, when I saw this man with his wife, he paid her respect in public. You never would have guessed the societal thinking underneath that. That very positioning of women in this society is what opens the door for people to start.... Once one person is deemed “less than”, then the things you do to them become less than.
What I'm really concerned about in the testimony we're hearing here today is with regard to the military in these countries where the armies are doing these things. It seems to me the leadership of that military will have either directed this or at least offered benign neglect to allow it to happen.
Is there any evidence at all that the military leaders in these countries have publicly or privately sanctioned these activities?