Evidence of meeting #87 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was drc.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Thank you, Mr. Reid. I'm glad to be taking up the rear.
And thanks for all of your presentations. It has been very illuminating, and I apologize for the cavernous nature of the room.
I was wondering if you could discuss HIV a little bit. Certainly, armed conflict is a significant vector and sexual violence is the vehicle. We know that Congo has a fairly high rate of HIV occurrence. I think it's somewhere around 5%, and the majority of those are women and girls. So I would imagine it has had quite an impact. I know the government is very conscious of the problem and has been trying to work through it.
Can you maybe discuss a little bit the impact that has had on communities? What kinds of measures have we taken to try to stop the transmission, and to at least treat those who have it? And what can we do from here to help them?
June 11th, 2013 / 1:55 p.m.
Director, Women in War Program, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, As an Individual
One of the most important things is recognizing it as a problem, so it's encouraging to hear you bring up the issue, which is very important.
It also begs the broader question of how to provide effective health and medical services in DRC, which is in dire need, and possibly providing HIV care as part of more integrated health services.
I know that many NGOs do remarkable work providing health services in collaboration with the national government.
HIV is especially interesting because I think there is actually broad recognition of the threat of the disease. It can often create a rather perverse situation where people assume that survivors of sexual violence have AIDS—all of them—and that it's guaranteed and inevitable.
This definitely feeds into the stigmatization and ostracism of women who have been raped, which is unfortunate since, on one hand, you want a recognition of HIV as a problem, but you also want people to recognize that it's not an inevitable outcome of rape. So there is a need to temper recognition by providing services, but also realizing that we need to reduce the stigma of the fact that women and girls are susceptible to this.
It's encouraging that the Congolese government is aware of the issue and I think that there needs to be a bit more attention on the ground to voluntary counselling, testing, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and provision of antiretroviral therapy.
These are all important efforts that could actually be strengthened.
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
I really like the idea of mental disarmament that you mentioned earlier, and think that it's probably the key in the long term.
When it comes to girls especially, there are probably some challenges with being able to get them the services they need to mentally disarm, because there have been girl child soldiers as well as boys.
How is that going? Maybe we could also bring it back. I'm going to assume that some of these girls are probably victims of sexual violence as well. Could you discuss a little bit the impact on girls and how we're helping them reintegrate?
1:55 p.m.
Director, Women in War Program, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely. I would say that the vast majority, if not all, of the girls who have been associated with armed groups are probably the victims of sexual violence or sexual slavery.
We've interviewed a great number of female former child soldiers who note that the best possible outcome they could hope for was to belong to a commander who would then protect them from other sexual predation.
One of the challenges for women and girls leaving armed groups is that they face much more stigma than men. They're often looked upon as being used goods. They don't even have the dubious honour of having tried to protect their country. They're not seen as real soldiers, but often as just sexual playthings who are now tainted by their time associated with armed groups, even though some of the women and girls actually self-identified as having tried to become soldiers for a greater good.
They don't really have any sense of belonging in a community. Many people think they should go back to armed groups, or they don't have a place. They're not eligible for marriage and they're not seen as fulfilling any kind of traditional female role.
One thing women face as well is that they often have children as a result of their time in armed groups and these children often face, as their mothers do, very intense stigma. There is this assumption that the children will grow up to be bad like their fathers, or are already soldiers in some way, shape, or form and cannot be trusted, should not be educated, and should not be allowed to stay in relatives' houses, etc.
So addressing the stigma against not only former female soldiers and survivors of sexual violence, but their children as well is extraordinarily important.
That gets us back to these generational impacts of violence. Right now we see a generation of children who have been affected by or directly borne from sexual violence. If we don't take this up as an issue that is worthy of examination and address it now, I think it will clearly come to the fore in another generation.
2 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Thank you, Mr. Toone.
Well, thank you very much to our witness today for coming here and enlightening us. This will make it possible to have a more fulsome report than would otherwise have been possible, so I very much appreciate that, as we all do.
Colleagues, after we dismiss the witness, I have to ask you to stay here for a brief in camera session. If you would indulge us, we'll just suspend for a moment while we move to an in camera session.
Thank you very much.
2 p.m.
Director, Women in War Program, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, As an Individual
It was an honour to be here.
Thank you.
2 p.m.
Conservative