Good afternoon, and thanks for having me.
I'll just step back and let you know a bit about Rainbow Railroad and how we're affected by Iran and the situation facing individuals in Iran, and other countries around the world.
Rainbow Railroad was established in 2006, although we became an official charitable organization in 2013. Our mission is to help LGBTQI2-S individuals around the world who are facing persecution find a pathway to safety.
Unfortunately, the amount of work we do has been increasing significantly over the years as more individuals have found out about our organization and how we can help. In 2015, we helped 29 individuals find a pathway to safety. That number rose to 81 people in 2016, and since January we've already helped and moved about 60 individuals, with another 10 on the way.
If you're following the news, you might also know that we are a point organization with the Russian LGBT Network, which is the organization helping people who have fled Chechnya to find refuge in safe houses.
Rainbow Railroad works directly with organizations on the ground to help individuals find a pathway to safety, whether it's through the UNHCR process or with a visa of some sort into a country. However, we will, through any legal means, provide transportation to individuals where there's access to a country without a visa requirement.
In Iran, we're faced with a situation where, while we're very thankful for groups like the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, there is a very limited amount of civil society on the ground that can actually help us. Civil society and these organizations are key for us to establish connections and verify cases and to help the traumatized individuals actually move to a pathway to safety.
In Iran, we're finding ourselves stuck for a couple of reasons. Individuals, in order to receive Canadian support, need to leave the country. Determining a safe place for those individuals to go, whether it be Bolivia or another country, is taxing and dangerous for the individual. Most importantly, it's finding a mechanism for safety once they arrive in that country. They can receive visa-free access to another country like Argentina, but ideally they would be able to get either a facilitation visa or a temporary resident permit to gain entry into Canada.
The challenge we're facing right now from our stakeholders is that we have wonderful declarations from the Canadian government about being welcome to LGBTQI2-S individuals, but we're actually limited in the number of individuals we're able to bring into Canada. We're really concerned about what the Iranian individuals are facing. Arsham laid out very clearly that they're in very dire situations. We've had at least 20 requests from individuals this year. We are open to facilitating an opportunity to provide access to a safe haven for any of those individuals.
Thank you.