Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm afraid that's all the time we have for that round.

We now go to Mr. Marston.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I had six months' experience in Saudi Arabia in the seventies--we can talk about that another time--and it's far from the country as portrayed.

If you saw a look of concern on my face, Ms. Golberg, when you were starting your testimony, I think I have to put it into context. We've sat on this committee and we've listened to testimony about the butchery of albinos. Recently we had testimony about “boy dance” in Afghanistan, where young boys are dressed as women and sold off to the highest bidder.

When you came in here, you obviously approached this from a very high level, and you were kind of parsing words at one point there. So at first I was kind of backing away from your testimony, to be very frank with you. And then you started talking more about what's happening on the ground.

I realize you have to deal with these things at a high level. We're talking about the rape of women and children, and how in countries this is being used as an ugly tool of war. It sounds from testimony as though this is spreading, in the African nations particularly.

But coming back to your Canadian action plan--and I may be mistaken in this--there are detractors of the government here who all the time will say that the dollars haven't been delivered through the action plan for Canada. I thought I heard something similar in what you said, that you're in the process of building a plan, but not too much is actually going out the door. Is that a failure of dollars? Again, in the testimony, someone was talking about being unaware of where the moneys are going to be, and wondering what the future budget will be since there's no indication.

How much faith do you have that you're going to be able to actually do some fairly significant things with this plan?

[Elissa Golberg]

I would say a couple of things. First of all, I'm very aware of the seriousness of these issues, having myself served in a country where these issues are very much at the fore. Prior to taking on this assignment, I was the representative of Canada in Kandahar, and so I dealt with these issues on a daily basis.

Actually, we try to make sure we're addressing the issue of women, peace, and security at the global multilateral level--which is about setting norms and setting standards so that you can hold countries to account and you can help to establish best practice--and we also approach it in country-specific circumstances through our embassies and through specific activities in our work with international organizations and NGOs.

I didn't want to take up too much of the committee's time, but we do all kinds of specific things in countries. We support women's participation as mediators in peace processes. We make sure that women can participate in peace processes. We've been a strong advocate, for instance, for women's participation in both the DRC and in Sudan, in the Darfur peace processes.

We have provided resources to facilitate land-dispute mechanisms. One of the biggest issues that women often face in countries post-conflict and post-disaster is that they don't have land tenure rights. So we have very specific projects in a number of countries to try to help women deal with that.

SGBV investigation has been an important part of our activities in Afghanistan, in DRC, and in Colombia, for instance. In Colombia we've put a number of projects in place specifically to try to address issues of impunity, because these issues weren't being looked at.

So I could give you a whole list of things we do, but I totally agree with you; we are very much in the practical, very much with our sleeves rolled up, here in Ottawa, as are all of our colleagues around the world.

Am I confident that we'll be able to do something with the action plan? Yes, because we already are. What the action plan enables us to do, though, for the first time is to try to bring all this stuff together within one coherent plan. It sets out a list of priority activities that we're going to do. It helps us to establish the baseline for these things.

To go back to the question that Mr. Dorion asked about the finances, our starting point for this was to look at the fact that there is all of this money already being spent by Canada in situations of armed conflict and in humanitarian crises. Let's start with this: how do we make sure that the money that's already being spent has the lens of women, peace, and security being utilized? As we look at that, then we can determine whether or not there are additional needs in certain places.

Even for my own organization, I was looking at my figures over the last couple of months. I manage the global peace and security fund, and this past year--if you understand your interpretation of women, peace, and security--we've spent about $32 million on projects that directly benefit women and girls in situations of armed conflict. Of that, $1 million is spent specifically around Resolution 1325, and $5.7 million is to address sexual and gender-based violence, but then the rest is for mainstreaming these issues.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

You've already succeeded in doing what I wanted you to do, which was to bring the context closer to the ground, because I want people listening your presentation to realize that you folks have a heart. There are many times that people in public service are just “number crunchers”; they're just this or they're just that. I was concerned, because I know of some of the activities and have heard of some.

One of the things you just mentioned, benchmarks, was the next point I was going to. In our discussions before at this committee, we've talked about nations that have poor human rights records and how we can improve that, and whether we could tie our CIDA funding or any moneys that we're investing in those countries to benchmarks. Particularly concerning was the “boy-dance” thing in Afghanistan, which we heard about. Here we are with our military fighting in that country, with all kinds of resources going there. How do we hold them accountable to us to do something to stop these kinds of horrific things--by tying our aid to it?

Of course, one person said, well, you know, we'll tell them that we'll remove our troops if they don't do this. But this is a long-time effort. This is a huge systemic cultural change.

I agree with you that your planning has to be for generations, not just years, because this cultural thing is in more than one or two countries. It is across the board.

So I was pleased to hear your response.

[Elissa Golberg]

It is a real challenge. This is my day job. I work on this 24/7, dealing with issues of conflict and fragility, and there is a huge appetite and expectation in a 24/7 culture that you can change things instantaneously. For some of these issues, we are very much, as you say, sir, having to work on social change and cultural change. It can take a long time to do it, but it's also about working with these countries, working with governments at the national level, working with governments at the local level, working with civil society organizations.

Don, I think you wanted to add something as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We're out of time here, Mr. Marston, so....

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Can I have ten seconds?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Yes.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks.

Rape is used as a tool of war. You mentioned that it was targeting women. I would suggest that it's targeting men, because in a society in which women are already demeaned, this destroys the women and thus destroys the society. And that's how they are getting at the men.

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

We turn now to Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

How about I just pick up where Mr. Marston left off, with some accolades.

First off, I think you endure one of the things we're very familiar with. In other words, you're hearing of repeated incidents of human rights violations over and over again and are sometimes feeling very much constrained and muted by the inability to take action and save those people who are on death row in different countries or are being raped or are being persecuted in any number of ways. I commend you for being able to endure that, for having the patience with the United Nations, and for much more that you do on a day-to-day basis. I mean that most sincerely, and I'm glad that Mr. Marston brought it up first.

Also, as someone who tends to be conservative, I was very happy to hear that we want to see how we are spending our money in this regard before we add more resources, to make sure that we're spending in the most effective way. So I thank you for that, as well.

That actually answers one of my questions. We had two witnesses, Joanne Lebert and Kristine St-Pierre, who mentioned the fact that there were no funds appended to it. You answered that question quite well.

You mentioned something about gaps, which they talked about too. From what I got from their testimony, their concern wasn't so much about the existence of gaps as it was about going back to civil society again and getting more input to rejig the plan.

Do you have intentions to do that in the future?

[Elissa Golberg]

Yes. In fact, our intent very much was to continue to work with civil society and to secure their input. Peacebuild was a partner for us as we were developing the action plan. They helped to facilitate consultations with Canadian civil society. We benefited from engaging with about 500 people across the country, and Peacebuild facilitated that. In fact, I'm currently in discussions with them on how we can take this forward. I'm confident that we'll be able to find a positive way to continue to work together.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Great.

I have one question of concern. I spent a number of years on the public accounts committee. One of the things we often found was that there would be an multi-department initiative, and nobody could ever be held to account, because it was the responsibility of each individual department to bring about this plan according to what they were responsible for. One of the things Madam Lebert and Ms. St-Pierre mentioned was the fact that, as they phrased it, they wanted a cabinet position for accountability.

For me, where does the buck stop? Is there going to be some mechanism for transparency in all the departments so that they have a report card, at least, that's specific, so that there's some accountability around the implementation of the plan?

[Elissa Golberg]

Each department, as you noted, is going to be responsible for following through. What we have done is that within the plan, we've specifically said that there'll be an annual report that will be issued publicly. First of all, there's nothing like a public report to ensure that people are following through on this. We'll be working interdepartmentally to make sure that people are establishing their baselines. That's going to take us some time, so we might not have it all by the first annual report that comes out. We're going to do our very best to make sure that those reports are not glossing over the challenges we're facing. I think if there's anything we've learned from our experiences, for instance with the quarterly reporting on Afghanistan, it is that the more transparent we are about the challenges we're facing, the better the dialogue we'll have with the public, NGOs, and parliamentarians about what it takes to implement things.

I think the annual public report we're going table will be one method of accountability. The other is that all of the ministers signed off on the action plan. So the ministers themselves have indicated that this is something they will pursue with their departments. I think that's an additional element of accountability.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Great.

On the level of execution of a plan, you said that for the first couple of years you're going to be aggregating some baseline data so you can develop some really substantive, practical, and realistic benchmarks. There will always be people--as you mentioned, Madam Golberg--who want immediate results. You just can't do that, especially in war-torn areas where there's no substantial civil society to speak of--no infrastructure in justice and security.

I'll leave this as a comment for myself, and you may want to comment on it. But I hope that when you start to develop the indicators or benchmarks--whatever term you want to use--they will be more focused on results, even if they're modest. We understand what you have to work with. Rather than a report on the actions you did, what are the results on the ground, as Mr. Marston was saying, that all of these initiatives and actions are equated to?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

You still have a bit of time left, Mr. Sweet. Is there anything else you want to comment on?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

That's great, Mr. Chairman.

If I have more time, I would like to direct a question on Afghanistan.

We had a witness here in our lasting meeting, Reverend Majed El Shafie, who talked about some terrible persecution. Boy enslavement was one of them, and of course the persecution of women. Perhaps you could comment on that.

I specifically want to address the systematic persecution for Christian conversion, which he mentioned was quite serious. In fact, presently there are those who are jailed for that.

What are we doing in that regard?

[Adrian Norfolk, Director, Policy and Advocacy Division, Afghanistan Task Force, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

On the persecution of Christians--

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Or you can talk about any of those three categories.

[Adrian Norfolk]

Well, bacha bazi was raised a couple of times by Mr. Marston, so I can address that.

Certainly the rights of children are a priority for Canada. One of our four priorities post-2011 will be investing in the future of Afghan children and youth. With regard to bacha bazi, sexual abuse of children, it is presently unlawful under the Afghan penal law under the juvenile code. We are very active in working with the Afghan government, justice institutions, and our partners to make sure it's part of the penal code that is being developed right now.

We have seen the Afghan government enact a number of laws addressing the rights of the child, but--

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Silva was there, and one of the interesting things he said about his meeting with the Afghan officials was that, with regard to conversion to Christianity, they were willing to talk about any aspect, but with regard to this one issue, they refused to even speak about it.

Are we pressing them in this regard, to deal with that?

[Adrian Norfolk]

With regard to religious freedom, we are indeed. On the instruction of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canadian officials have expressed our concern to the Afghan ambassador here regarding respect for religious freedom in Afghanistan, which has deteriorated, in particular for Christian groups and individuals.

We continue to look to the Afghan government to uphold their constitution and the constitutional rights of its citizens.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Chair, as a point of clarification, “religious freedom” is not the proper term. The idea of religious freedom, they believe, is that if you're a Muslim you're a Muslim, and that if you're a Christian you're a Christian--or whatever religion you are. It's the idea of conversion: that's the problem.

If you talk to them about it, they will say that they respect religious freedom. It's the idea of conversion that is not tolerated or respected. They don't even want to talk about it.

So we have to get to the issue of conversion, or what they call apostasy. That's the issue that needs to be raised, not religious freedom; they will say they're all for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Did you have a response to that, Mr. Norfolk?

[Adrian Norfolk]

No. I believe this might be raised in the context of one of the particular issues going on right now, the case of Said Musa. That's being monitored extremely closely.