Evidence of meeting #51 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 rwanda.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I would presume that wherever they are in Quebec, the Quebec health system probably has something to help them manage.
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
There are organizations in Quebec, for example, Page-Rwanda, that help. They have brought all the survivors together and videotaped their experiences and established sort of a library in Montreal of all the experiences. It is just a room in some building, but you can go there and listen to all the stories, and every once in a while they'll have a little informal conference or something where they get together and talk about it.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
It makes them feel of value to be able to express that story, which is a critical component.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
When people have internal clocks, they're surprisingly accurate, I notice.
Ms. Grewal, you're next.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Ms. Montgomery, for taking your time to speak with us today regarding the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and for your time and effort involved in improving the lives of those who were affected.
During your time in Rwanda you observed children who were born from this tragedy and noted that the mothers have palpable disgust for these children and seek to dissociate from them in all aspects of their lives. Now these children are adults and are experiencing feelings of rejection and are unsure of what to do in life. In your account in the Montreal Gazette, you explained that they have a few mental health issues and that health workers are not available.
In your opinion, how can these children improve their lives? Are there other resources available to them besides the aid workers?
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
I would say that the best way to improve their lives is through education. Every single one of them I talked to, not just the children of rape but the orphans of the genocide too, wants to go to school. They would love to go to university and get an education, but there is just no funding for that.
There was funding for some victims of the genocide, as I said, and there was an orphans fund, but that didn't cover the Hutus or the kids born of rape, so again there was conflict between the two groups. Every single one of them that I spoke to, when I asked what would help and what they would like, said they wanted to go to school, but there is no money for that, which makes one feel a little helpless actually.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Seeing how the aid workers tend to focus more on the women who were raped than on the children who were conceived from rape, how are the needs of these almost 20,000 young adults being taken into account? Do they need more resources now that they are older than they did when they were first born?
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
I would say yes, because some of them have never received any kind of psychological support. They could use some therapy, which is what my friend Ganza is trying to do—he is Rwandan—with his Best Hope Rwanda, in bringing the women and their kids together to talk about how they're feeling.
I was at one of their meetings, and a government official showed up at it. I asked, “What about this group of people? What's the government doing for them?” He said that the government thought it had offered support to widows and children, but these ones just fell through the cracks. He seemed to be a bit oblivious about this group that hadn't been taken care of.
You have to realize that the country was completely destroyed, of course. There was no functioning government. There were no homes. There was nothing. Psychological help was the last thing on the list, and it still is.
Even when I spoke to the WHO representative in Kigali, he said it's a worldwide problem, and unfortunately, it's at the bottom of the list for funding because it's very hard to provide the numbers of who's dying. At least with AIDS or even Ebola, you can say that there are this many people who are dead. We don't know how many people are dying in Rwanda because of mental health issues.
It's also a cultural thing. They're just starting to understand that this is an issue, because in Rwanda there has been a lack of education in terms of mental health that there is here. They treat people who walk through the streets barefoot and who talk to themselves as though they are possessed by the devil or whatever. Now there's an increasing understanding about depression and mental health.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Rape as a weapon of war is deplorable, so I couldn't help but feel for these women as I heard about their traumatic experiences. I would also like to enquire about mothers who have not informed their children that they were conceived from rape, and the difficulties of informing their children that their father was involved in a heinous crime. In many cases, the father would also have killed much of the mother's family. Many women have chosen not to tell their children the circumstances around their conception.
How are these children responding psychologically compared to their counterparts who have been informed about the rape of their mothers? How will these children respond upon discovering the circumstances of their conception? Would knowing about those bring reconciliation or would it cause anger?
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
I spoke to one group that supports some of these people. As I said, it's all very ad hoc and not very organized in terms of groups working together. There will be a group helping a group of people, and then in another part of the country there won't be any help at all. They have helped 819 Rwandan women who gave birth after being raped, and of those, only 50 have revealed the truth to their children. They said it's a very difficult thing to do because the reactions are different. Some of them denied that they were even Rwandan after that, and they took on this persona of being Ugandan and they stopped speaking Kinyarwanda. Another one said a woman became a prostitute. Some turn very violent.
I think it's something that needs to be done in a controlled environment by professionals with support. I think the kids do need to know where they came from and who their father was. They need to be told in such a way that they know it wasn't their fault and there's no shame attached to it. The problem is they were born with this huge cloud of shame over their mother's head. Any woman who's raped carries this shame and guilt, let alone if she has to give birth because of it. I think it's a two-pronged thing.
Informing the kids about where they came from is definitely another area that needs to be addressed.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Thank you, Ms. Grewal. I'm afraid that's all the time you have. We're actually a minute and a half over on your round.
Mr. Vaughan, please.
January 27th, 2015 / 1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Trinity—Spadina, ON
I'm curious as to where you encountered Canadian aid and where you saw Canadian aid being effective in dealing with the issues you've brought to us today.
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
I don't think I saw any. I don't think Rwanda is one of Canada's core countries or focus countries; I don't know what the key word is now.
I'm sure there must be some Canadians there, but as I said, Rwanda is the kind of country where.... For example, their health minister is this rock star who is an amazing woman. I called her up and said that I would like to speak to some NGOs that are working in the area of mental health, such as Partners In Health. She went crazy on me. She was so angry. She asked me why I wanted to speak to a foreign NGO and said that they have all kinds of local NGOs that are much better to speak to and know the situation. I said okay, that I was hoping to speak to anybody, and that I just wanted to talk to people who were working in the area of mental health. It turned out that the Rwandan people I spoke to were extremely well informed and obviously knew the situation better than outsiders coming in did.
I didn't encounter a lot of Canadians there. I don't think I encountered any, except maybe one guy who had gone there on his own and was a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I think that's probably partly because of the Rwandans' tight controls on who works there.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Trinity—Spadina, ON
In terms of the domestic front, we know that recent studies are showing that the mental health of refugees and immigrants declines after their arrival in Canada precisely because of the withdrawal of services particularly for refugees, but also for many immigrants to this country. Where is the government's response to those people who we have accepted as refugees and what programs are being specifically delivered to a very unique set of refugees here in Canada?
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
Here in Canada? I'm not that familiar with it, but I have done some stories in the past with regard to the psychological support services being cut. In fact, I work at the courthouse full time, and one of the security guards there is a Rwandan woman whom I got talking to. She said that she had been getting therapy but that it had been cut. Whether that's true or not.... I believe her. I have no reason not to believe her. I didn't see her again at the courthouse. I don't know what happened. Whether she lost her job, or quit her job, or changed jobs, I don't know. I lost touch with her.
I often see homeless people on the street, and maybe this is sort of a racist thing on my part, but if they are people of colour or black, I automatically assume that they are refugees who came here and got lost in the system somehow. A lot of them are Africans. I wonder if that is what happens if they don't get the psychological support or don't have the family support they need.
One of my friends came here from Rwanda to do his master's in journalism at Carleton. He ended up having a psychological episode on the streets of Toronto, on a bus, and the police had to be called. I was very grateful that they didn't shoot him, which we know can happen. He ended up being diagnosed here as bipolar. He went back to Rwanda and continues to have psychological difficulties.
I think that if we are going to accept refugees here from countries that have been torn apart by war—and right now we are accepting a lot of Syrians who are escaping exactly that—we owe it to them to provide psychological support, to provide at least somebody who they can talk to about what they are going through.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Trinity—Spadina, ON
In terms of what you have experienced with the programs that brought this news to us, the programs that funded overseas excursions by journalists to explore the world and bring us back this information, and in terms of the cuts you've seen in foreign aid to Rwanda from the Canadian government, matched with movements today to withdraw services for refugees voluntarily or by suggestion, is there anything we're doing that is supporting a brighter future for these individuals?
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Trinity—Spadina, ON
Here. It seems that with every single program you spoke of there's a retreat on behalf of the government. Is there anything we're doing where we're stepping up and delivering?
Journalist, Montreal Gazette, As an Individual
I don't think it's a secret that this government has cut everything, or many things, unfortunately. We tend to support...well, aid countries that have something that we need, such as oil. In the case of Rwanda, what do they have? Nothing.
Any journalism thing that I've done through some kind of government support, such as teaching in Rwanda at the university, that's been cut. I was the last journalist to get the CIHR fellowship. It has been cut. It was only $25,000. There's only one foreign fellowship now which was set up by the family of former journalist Jim Travers who died. His family set that up.
It's very difficult to go into these countries and report on important issues like this. It's very difficult to see refugees who come here, or immigrants who come here and are struck by the reality of what it's like to live here. It's not easy. Anytime I travel to places like Rwanda, of course a lot of people want to come to Canada because they think it's the best place on earth to live, but if you're not educated and you're black and you're poor, it's a struggle.