Chair, thank you very much. It's nice to see some old colleagues here and to be with you today. We communicate with South Sudan all the time. It's always like this. As soon as they come online, if you want, we can hold off till later. Just let us know.
As I said, thank you. This is an important issue for us. We're still involved in Sudan, and we've just recently had a meeting with our team in which we wondered if we could continue, because it's been so bad and so difficult. We just decided that we will continue to try to go there and try to do what we can.
We're a Canadian NGO that went in there in the 1990s doing human rights work, but as we were doing that, all of a sudden the southern Sudanese themselves began to ask us if we could please get into development work. On our website we're called a human rights and development organization, but this was at their request. They felt that for all the human rights injustices that were happening in their area.... Keep in mind that this was when the big war was on, and it was very difficult between the north and south in Sudan. We're right at the border between the north and south of Sudan, and we're right up next to Darfur. This was a very hard-hit area in the war. It's why we chose it. I always found it fascinating that these people, who were going through so much, were asking for development, not just relief, not just emergency funding. They wanted to get on with their lives and do things.
That was during the Chrétien era. Then during the Paul Martin era, we were able to work with the Canadian government and we got funding for primary schools and others. Then when the Conservatives were in power under Stephen Harper, one of the very first things I did when I became an MP was to stand up and talk about the situation in South Sudan. It was my first time ever doing that; I was a bit nervous. The Prime Minister responded by giving over $3 million to women's centres in South Sudan and the region where we worked, and we've always been appreciative that Stephen Harper and the Conservative government did that. So Canada has a history here, and it's a history of almost 20 years. It will be 20 years next year.
My wife Jane is here. Jane knows way more about this than I do. She didn't want to speak because she gets nervous, but she'd be glad to have questions. When we first went there and saw what was going on, we realized that we were in a special area in which human rights were a disaster. It was just so bad. Most of the refugees were coming into our area. Most of the deaths were happening in our area. Slavery and other things were happening in our area—very difficult.
Then with the referendum and South Sudan's becoming its own nation, all of a sudden things shifted quickly to development. We're not here today to tell you about human rights problems in South Sudan, because you're probably smarter than we are on that. I listened to the Global Affairs presentation from last week, so I know you're aware of that big-picture stuff. On the ground, where we work, after peace came it moved very quickly to development. Schools were opened up. We opened up a medical clinic. We're just a small NGO, and we're both just volunteers. We both direct the food bank in London. We've never tried to be big, but what we saw was this hunger to get on with development, so we did that. We just opened up a high school there last year. We took our twin girls from South Sudan there for the opening of it. It was fantastic. All of these women and girls were so excited to finally have a high school they could send people to.
Let me tell you that there's only one tribe in that area. Somebody asked us, just before this meeting, whether it was really an ethnic and a tribal conflict in South Sudan. It absolutely is. There's no way we can get around that. When I was on foreign affairs, we were warned by everybody that after peace was found between north and South Sudan, south South Sudan would begin to dematerialize. It would become much more difficult, and that is what has happened.
In the area in which we work it's all one tribe. It's the Dinka tribe, so there's not the conflict that was there. You could look at it and say there's not too much, then, in the way of human rights problems there. There are, but it's not at all like in other areas, such as Juba or up in the oilfields.
We want to tell you today what in regard to human rights or the lack of them in Sudan has happened in our area. These are mostly women we have worked with. They are true champions. When we went in there, we just didn't think they would be able to do it, and they've done it. They're running water programs. They're sending their kids to schools. The schools have scholarships. The seven CIDA centres, women's centres that were built, are thriving. That's what our team told us last week. In spite of all that's happening, these people and their relationship with Canada has continued.
The problem is that what's happening with human rights elsewhere in the country has now begun to affect our area, where that's not as much of a severe problem. What we're seeing now, as a result of that, is that inflation has gone up, so people can't afford food. Our team came back last week, saying, “We couldn't believe it. All these people—and we've been going for 20 years—are finally facing starvation.” It's terrible. It's difficult. It's because of inflation and it's because people don't have the money anymore.
I think it's important for all of us to realize that these human rights, for us anyway, are not just about things going wrong, but about not continuing to support things that are going right. These people are vulnerable and this is not even in their area. These women aren't being taken into slavery anymore and the kids are able to go to school, but they're losing these opportunities. People who we've known for years are going back into Darfur. It's hard to believe. They've worked so hard over all these years to come out to where we are, and they're now going back into Darfur, because there are medical supplies, maybe, and there's food, maybe. There are opportunities for their children to go to school, maybe, and they'll take it.
A bunch of the women who came out of north Sudan when the referendum was signed and were free to come back to their home areas are beginning to go back as well, because it just didn't work out. A lot of these people came to our area, because that's right where most of the refugees funnel through. What we're seeing here, I think, is a situation in which human rights in Sudan, in the areas where it's gone right because Canada showed leadership there through CIDA and our leadership, and through the bureaucracy here at Global Affairs and others.... For the things that Canada does right, we're slowly losing those things.
Our fear is that human rights in Sudan are all.... They're terrible. We've always been honest about it. The very first person we met when we came into South Sudan back in 1999 was Salva Kiir, who is now the president. He was in charge of protecting us as we went through all those war areas and war zones, and we appreciated that. He was in charge of his people. Now he's the president of South Sudan, and he's not helping these people at all. He's not protecting them.
We've been around a lot, and we've seen a lot of things, but we believe that Canada's uniqueness in this situation is that it decided to work with local NGOs and others to make a difference, to make a development difference. This happens in areas with child soldiers. I listened to the testimony the other day from Global Affairs, when you were asking about child soldiers. We worked with Roméo Dallaire on that stuff. It's true, really true, that the child soldier thing is very difficult, but the reason they get into being child soldiers is that the boys roam around and have nothing to do. We have a son who is that age now and is in South Sudan and in Darfur, and we can see how it could happen. There's no development, and they form these gangs. Also, the women end up starving and their kids are starving, so they follow the military around, just in order to get supplies, health care, and medicines for their kids.
The issue is not just what do we do up here about human rights, or what do we do up here about child soldiers. Without development, this will all just come crashing down. There's so much we could tell you. There's so much we've experienced. We've gone there a lot of times for a lot of years, but Canada shines bright in this particular area, which was a really bad area during the bad war between the north and the south. Canada shines bright, but this is beginning to decompose as people and other NGOs have moved out, because we don't have this ability anymore to.... We would provide schooling, but others would provide medicines, or others might provide farming. There were all those kinds of things. A lot of those NGOs have now left, and all of these people who came to Canada for 20 years and looked to Canada for that kind of help are really struggling.
I know that you would probably be more interested in the sky-high stuff that's really important. I heard you talking about the criminal court and all these other things. Those things are very important, but where we have a stake, this is really important. Where we have a stake and we have a history, we have women who are champions who have decided to speak out against their own government. That happened when we were there last year, and we couldn't believe it. Usually they would be censored, or something would happen, but they've decided to be champions in their own community, and now they can't feed their own kids and they're considering going back.
We can answer your questions, but I'm encouraging you here. Please, human rights isn't just about what's been taken away; it's about what's been built and can be lost if we can't keep our attention on it. I know that 70% of the funding that goes into relief in South Sudan comes through NGOs. I understand that. I understand NGOs working with UNICEF and others. I get that, but Canada has a unique presence in South Sudan. They've been a country of focus for us for 20 years. We have a history with these people. We almost have children there. There are kids who were born when we were first there who are now going into school and going into high school, and it's all being lost.
I would encourage you, as the foreign affairs committee.... This is the way it was when I was on the foreign affairs committee. We spent five months studying South Sudan during the time of the referendum.
We kept getting these points of view from other people that it was going to be great, and we knew it wasn't going to be great. We knew it was going to be a challenge, and now it is. It's crunch time, and it's really difficult for us to come in front of you and not answer the big questions I'm sure you want answered. But we have to be witnesses.
We have to be witnesses to what we're seeing with these people in South Sudan. Our own kids were in slavery; their mother was shot. It started with that. Then we move our way through and get past human rights, and you get to schooling, education, women's empowerment, and a woman being a governor. On and on it goes. We build these high schools and we do all these wonderful things, and because of something that's happening in another part of the country, this place of strength and where we are with human rights—because Canada has been there and doing it—is about ready to deteriorate because the other NGOs have left and it's hard to get the resources in.
I would just like to say to you as a human rights committee, and I'll end it here, and Jane will answer your questions a lot better than I will, that this is really a tough thing for us. We went there as Canadians. We are Canadians and we're proud Canadians. We have three kids from Sudan who are proud Canadians. We took them down to speak to the American Congress about South Sudan and they have Canadian citizenship. These things are important to us, but we have brothers, sisters, and children, in South Sudan, all of us. They are there and they survived and stayed, because Canada was there and survived and stayed.
I can only encourage you as you go through these deliberations to please look above that. Look at why people are becoming child soldiers on the ground. What are we missing and what do we need to do? Also, look at these areas where we have a history. This is us. We did it as Canada. We made it work. Now because something is happening in another part of the country, we could lose it. I'm just encouraging you to not let that happen. Whatever you do, don't let it happen.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
