Evidence of meeting #24 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was syria.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Gary Schellenberger Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Is Iran part of that, or is it human rights that Iran is the head of?
Conservative
Gary Schellenberger Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Do you think that the United Nations seems helpless, or do you think that the United Nations is relevant anymore?
As an Individual
The United Nations is a great organization but it needs reform regarding many treaties, particularly the Rome Statute. The member states have a chance every three or four years to sit, to decide, to vote, and to change, add, modify, and reform. This could not be done this way. It needs effort. It needs people to speak loudly to their government, and for their representatives to go and ask for the reforms.
I cannot understand that the Security Council can meet in an hour and make a decision to invade certain countries, but it cannot make a decision in three years to stop war in a country. The international community—including even Russia and China, which are opposing the stopping of war and have suppressed three Security Council resolutions—agreed to disarm the Syrian regime of chemical weapons in just a few days.
Why are they not acting? It's a lack of political will and interest.
Conservative
Gary Schellenberger Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
How adequate are international responses to the needs of refugees who are survivors of sexual violence, and how can these responses be improved?
I know you've touched on it a couple of times, but again, as you have stated, some of these victims need to come out and tell their story. Is that correct?
As an Individual
Yes, but this is part of it.
I think these families.... I appeal again to the Government of Canada to open the doors, particularly to the victims of sexual violence—men and women. Because here in Canada, or in the western countries particularly, they can come forward, they can talk. But in their places, in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in any other conservative society, they cannot talk. They die in silence.
Maybe some of them get HIV or a serious disease, and they die in silence. They don't have money to go to hospitals. And it's a matter of shame. They are ashamed to go, because they got HIV because of this crime. They don't go.
The only way, I think, to make these people—not from inside Syria, because it's difficult—but those people in Jordan, in Lebanon, and Turkey, bring them and rehabilitate them and educate them and tell them to come forward and talk.
Conservative
Gary Schellenberger Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I know in my lifetime, when I was younger, I knew of various schoolgirls who I went to school with at that particular time who were raped. When they went home their families usually coddled them and had sympathy for them. I know they were chastised by some people; they were stigmatized by that, and that's in our society.
You said earlier that this isn't a religious thing, but in Syria or in Pakistan, when a young lady is raped, the father is likely to throw her off the 11th floor balcony. I know you said that it is not in the Muslim religion that this would happen, but it seems that with the three different factions in Syria, one maybe works against the other, because this is very traumatic in the Muslim religion.
Am I right?
As an Individual
It's not in religion. In fact, it's in the society, and it's in the traditions of the people. When we talk about Islam and Muslims, we have to differentiate between Islamic, which relates to the Islamic primary sources law...and when we say “Muslims” we talk about Muslims' behaviour. Go to any religion in the world and look at their teachings and their scriptures. It's clear, nice, and clean. They're talking about human rights and encouraging people to do well, and for followers, when they do wrong, we cannot refer to this being because they are Christians, because they are Jews, or because they are Buddhists. It's a personal or, let us say, individual behaviour.
Conservative
Conservative
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Wayne Marston
Well, as long it's a little short answer. You're 30 seconds over, but we'll allow a short answer.
Conservative
Gary Schellenberger Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Thank you.
I'm just wondering, is there a difference between the Muslim religion and Sharia law?
As an Individual
Muslim religion and Sharia law? Sharia law is about the Muslim religion.
NDP
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Our history as the west, as Christians, is fraught with our own examples of similar types of behaviour.
Not so long ago in the 1950s and 1960s when a young girl came home and was pregnant, she was kicked out of her home.
During the days of slavery, mothers in many cases would pray for their children to be born deformed so they would not have to live a life of slavery. In some cases, they would kill their children before the master could get to them, so that they didn't have to live the life of slavery.
Our history in the west is fraught with similar experiences in terms of our response both to rape and to our children, our women, our female members of our society, and the things that happened to them sexually.
I think the importance of this forum is to begin to enlighten the general public as to what is going on. If I may say so, it's not simply a matter of the fact that there are rape and violence going on. As you tried to express to my colleague from the Liberal Party, there is a nuance here, and it's the nuance, I think, that we are not grasping, in the same way that historically once upon a time war was a noble effort. I've said this before. Two groups of men stood not far from each other and shot little lead balls at each other, and this was considered an honourable thing, and that grew or changed or morphed into carpet bombing of public populations, of cities, which hadn't happened in war before.
I think that's the nuance in the difference of rape as it occurred throughout history, as you said, as the spoils of war, to the targeting of women and men in this way, because of the effect and the aftermath that it's going to have. We're now in the process of learning about that aftermath through the Rwandan crisis, which is now 20 years old—we'll be exploring that a little later—and seeing the effects of children who were born because of rape in a crisis like that, the relationship that has, and how that affects the family.
Now you're asking women who have experienced this to come forward to talk about that history or about what has happened to them. As I understand it, you're appealing to the Canadian government to allow more women who have experienced rape to come to Canada, to give them the opportunity to do so. But in their coming here to do so, how do we encourage them? How do we make them feel safe enough, for a lack of a better way of putting it, even here in Canada, to tell their story so that, again, we can better understand and then better formulate a proper response to these actions?
As an Individual
Thank you so much. This is a very important question.
Sir, you raised the issue of the children of rape and what they are facing now in Rwanda, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Croatia. Really it's terrible. Many of these children are devastated. They realize that their fathers were not killed during the war, but they are children of hatred as they call them. This is a bad consequence of wartime rape.
Concerning the women, I encourage the government to bring them to Canada. I think it is the responsibility of the government itself and of society, the non-governmental organizations working here for women, and for refugees, and for victims. They can rehabilitate them. They can take them to psychologists, to psychiatrists, to social workers to work with them. It's sort of rehabilitation, because they are sick—sick physically and sick socially, and sick even psychologically—and they need treatment. They cannot just put them in a shelter and give them food, or just make them feel secure that nobody can reach them, and in a couple of years they will be citizens.... It's a matter of treating these people and rehabilitating them. I think we have enough women's institutions to deal with this issue.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
If I may recap, then, what we would need to do in order to help these victims tell their story and bring their victimizers to trial is to develop methodology pertaining to their social understanding that would allow them to safely discuss, talk about, and testify against their perpetrators. Would that be a reasonable recap of what you're saying?
As an Individual
Yes. I agree 100% that this is a good way, and I think this is the right way. We have lots of feminist groups. We have lots of women's organizations, and they have dealt before with refugees from different parts of the world, and they do a very good job.
The Vice-Chair NDP Wayne Marston
Dr. Zawati, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for your heartfelt and compelling testimony today. It's very important to us. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned.