Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 7th, 2017

[Kate Kennedy]

Yes, we certainly do see access to cheap capital as a solution. In some cases it's about creating viable vocational training. That may be teaching seamstressing or something that's viable in a particular region to give someone a livelihood, but in other cases it's about social entrepreneurship or giving access to capital to start small businesses.

One of the things I saw just last week in southern India was a fantastic NGO that is giving women access to small business ownership. One of them is related to fruit and cotton. For example, one of them was mangoing. A very small investment allowed them to buy mango, dry it, and then sell it at the market. It got them out of exploitative situations in cotton mills and in that way enabled them to have a future.

The goal is to pay off the debt. The local interest rate was running at more than 25%, which was very high. Within six months they were paying that off, scaling up the business, and employing more girls out of the mill.

One of the opportunities in an environment like that is to look for cheaper capital to seed those sorts of businesses so they can move and grow faster and not get caught in a debt triangle.

We definitely are investing in front-line organizations that are coming up with innovative solutions to provide cheaper capital for business creation—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'm going to run out of time really quickly.

Do you do anything to get them into the supply chains? Is that just a matter of they're doing a business, and they will get into it naturally, or do you have programs that integrate them into the supply chains we're talking about, so that by the end they can be doing the supplying?

[Kate Kennedy]

It's a very interesting question. We were talking last week with a group of women about whether they would be interested in buying a cotton mill in an area in South Asia. That would mean a direct investment. I'm not aware of any purchasing of specific businesses within the existing supply chain that we've done, but it's a very good pathway to consider and potentially for Canadian aid to invest in.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Petra, you look as though you want to get in on this.

[Petra Bosma Kooman]

I do.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Go for it.

[Petra Bosma Kooman]

Do you want to take this, Edwin?

[Edwin Wilson]

I was going to mention that part of the framework we are working within in India is the enforcement of the 1976 bonded labour act, which sets out certain conditions that define when a person is actually a bonded labourer. Associated with that act is a provision for a rehabilitation grant to be given to individuals who have been released from a bonded labour situation.

We've had some great success in helping those individuals effectively manage that fund of money they've been given by the Indian government in order to invest it in their own business. We've had individuals who've been rescued, so to speak, from a bonded labourer experience in a brick kiln and who've gone on to set up their own free market enterprise brick kiln.

I think part of what we hope to demonstrate is that individuals who are free produce more than those who are enslaved. There may be more that could be said on that, but I think that comment will suffice.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

We have about two minutes left. Is there another questioner on the Liberal side?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for the emphasis on governance. When I was working in Bangladesh, I was advising the parliamentary committees in the parliament there. The women's committee was very interested in this issue of children and children's work and what parliament could do, first of all in terms of legislation, but also in terms of parliamentary oversight.

That program was funded by the Netherlands, but is this an area where you could see countries like Canada focusing on not just the judicial system or the government executive branch, but also on parliamentary oversight in terms of the implementation of laws?

[Edwin Wilson]

I believe so. We've had some great experience for the past number of years with having superior court justices from Canada travel to Bolivia with some frequency to provide training to the judges in Bolivia, but we've reached a point where we recognize that the next step in the change process we're leading is to introduce Canadian legislators to legislators in Bolivia so that the cornerstone principle of judicial independence is affirmed and reinforced by legislators, rather than simply being something that judges in Bolivia would wish for.

I agree absolutely.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Did you want to comment, Ms. Kennedy?

[Kate Kennedy]

Yes. I was just saying that deepening the engagement of governments with trafficking victims is critical, both in the source countries and in the destination countries. I think engaging legislators is something that we haven't seen enough of, and it could really play a role in deepening the engagement of those governments.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank the witnesses very much for your time and your testimony. More importantly, I would like to thank you very much for bringing justice to the powerless and the vulnerable. You do great work. I greatly admire both organizations, and I just want to say thank you very much for what you do.

[Edwin Wilson]

We thank you for your attention to this issue.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned.