You raised the issue of the concern some witnesses have that even approaching an immigration mission may in fact imperil them or at least raise a lot of concerns because of the reception they may get from either locally engaged staff, Canadian visa officers, or even staff at the UNHCR. I think this is a really valuable point, though I think it's a longer-term goal in terms of ensuring that over time we offer some kind of training to both Canadian and locally engaged staff who are dealing with these types of refugee claims.
When I was in Geneva in the fall with the UNHCR, they had finally recognized that this is an issue with their own staff. They deal with refugees in large numbers. They realize that they have done insufficient work to ensure that all of their staff are welcoming, or at least attuned to the possibility that some of the refugees they work with are in fact sexual minorities. For many it is a tremendously difficult thing to self-identify in the process of a refugee claim, so the UNHCR is only starting now to even think about how they may train their own staff to be attuned to that possibility, to listen to people, and to understand that there may be another story here that's not being told. I think we're very far behind on that.
I would flag to you that in terms of our inland process, there's been training for the decision-makers at the Immigration and Refugee Board since 1995. I was part of setting that into place and offering it. The immigration board in Canada has been doing this consistently every few years with the turnover in decision-makers and with their staff, so I think it can be done. I think a lot of Canadian visa officers are brought together in Ottawa maybe once a year to do some training. It certainly would be worthwhile to consider whether there could be some training offered on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. I think it's very new for some of these refugee organizations to even be considering that.