Welcome to the third meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, on this day of October 25, 2011.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying the issue of sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We have with us a number of witnesses today. Normally I would run through correspondence received and all that sort of thing, but in the interest of time, perhaps we'll skip that.
We also have a number of motions that are in order, and those who have proposed them are within their rights to introduce them at any point in the proceedings. I'd just ask that if anybody actually wants to do something like that, in the interest of fairness to our witnesses, perhaps find out if you have support from your colleagues for the motions, and then we'll deal with any motions at the end rather than while the witnesses are ready to testify.
That being said, we have a number of witnesses from the Department of Foreign Affairs and also from CIDA. You can see their names below.
I assume you've had a chance to talk among yourselves as to who will go first. Do the DFAIT folks want to go first and then the CIDA people, or the reverse? I see nods that it's DFAIT.
Okay, why don't we begin. We normally have 10 minutes for opening--that's been our practice in the past. I'll just state the obvious, that if you take 10 minutes each, it will reduce the amount of time for questions and answers. But we'll deal with that problem as it arises.
I'm going to turn the floor over to you, please.