Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 7th, 2012

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Does the government receive international funds to...? It's a poor country. Do they have international funds or not? They refuse them...?

[Patricia Malikail]

Eritrea denied famine relief from certain international organizations. I think we were aware that at one time the European Union was providing some funding to Eritrea. I don't know what the status of that is or whether all of that is still continuing. But Canada does not.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Also—

[Patricia Malikail]

I'm sorry, but yes, I do have that information.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Okay.

[Patricia Malikail]

The European Union had provided funding to Eritrea for a program in support of the agricultural sector, for community courts, and for the training of public servants, as well as for rehabilitation of its national heritage. But that assistance was just terminated, in November 2011, for technical reasons, probably because they couldn't confirm....

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Or the money was going....

I'll share my time with my colleague, if that's okay.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you.

I know that Eritrea has a policy in which they say men and women are equal and everything, but specifically what is the Government of Eritrea doing to protect and promote the rights of women, and, especially, what are they doing to combat what is known out there, that is, the widespread practice of female genital mutilation?

[Patricia Malikail]

That's one where we don't know what specifically they are doing to combat genital mutilation or to promote.... We do know just from the facts that more men have access to education than women, boys, and girls, yes.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

What I'm hearing is that we know very little on the ground about what is happening to women and children there. That's really quite disconcerting when you think about some of the stories that are out there about what is happening.

I want to go back to the comment about the taxation on the diaspora. We haven't had official complaints, but we do know that there have been reports by some people from Eritrea that they are being asked for this tax. Have we done anything to pursue this with those individuals as to how they are being approached? Or have we not done any follow-up?

[Patricia Malikail]

Nobody has come to us. What we have observed are reports in the media, but there has been no official complaint, and we're not aware of anyone who has come to the government. It's a criminal matter, essentially.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Okay.

I'll just follow up a little more on education. I know you said that more males have access to education than females. Specifically, what do we know about their elementary schooling, let's say? What do we know about what's happening there? What is the availability, and what are the opportunities for young children to be at school? How much information do we have?

[Patricia Malikail]

I don't have the details of the primary school education there.

I mentioned that our previous ambassador had not been called to present credentials over a period of almost three years, so basically the ambassador has not been allowed into the country to which he was accredited. That limits our ability to know more about the situation.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

This is a country, I'm finding out, even though I just stepped into the committee at the last minute today, that we know very little about. There's lots of supposition, and there's lots of “this is happening”, but we have little on-the-ground intelligence that we can verify.

[Patricia Malikail]

That's exactly it.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much.

How am I doing for time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You're just about out of time.

We'll go to Mr. Hiebert now, followed by Ms. Sgro.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you.

I appreciate your being here today to provide us with information about the status of this country.

Looking at the geography of it, I wonder first of all whether Eritrea has begun to engage in practices similar to those of their neighbour Somalia, in terms of pirating. I know their location on the Red Sea perhaps gives them an opportunity to participate in this kind of activity. Do we see this kind of activity as we do in Somalia?

[Patricia Malikail]

No, we don't have any direct information about Eritrea being involved in piracy right now.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

So what would be the primary source of income for even the government?

[Patricia Malikail]

I'm not sure exactly what the primary source of income for the government is.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

You mentioned sanctions earlier. Can you elaborate on what those sanctions are? If they're extensive, then I would say trade would not lead to much revenue. Perhaps we could start there.

[Patricia Malikail]

Right. The sanctions are focused on arms and on persons. The sanctions were based on arms flowing into Somalia.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

That's the only form of sanctions they're currently facing, even with the latest UN Security Council sanctions?

[Patricia Malikail]

There are also those on certain individuals.