Evidence of meeting #5 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was refugee.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
I'll look to the clerk for that information, although I just followed what we had set out for the first round and second round.
Yes, the second round would move to five, five, five, and five minutes. We just didn't have the time. We had decided we would conclude at 7:20. We went a minute or two over that just to get ready.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
That is why I was wondering about this. This committee has members from all four parties on it. When there was only 10 minutes left, shouldn't the speaking time per party have been two and a half minutes? Would it be possible to proceed in this way? Perhaps the clerk could answer my first question. Do our rules prevent us from doing this? I want to be clear that I am not blaming anyone. I am really just asking a question.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
I will answer first. I believe it is possible that it could have been done. If that is something the members would like me to do going forward, whenever we're in a situation like this—to break it down equally in terms of the number of minutes and leave the order as we had set it up—I would be happy to do so.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
This may potentially happen at the next meeting. As we have often said here, there is no partisanship on this committee. So all the parties should have the same amount of time to speak. That is what I am proposing to my honourable colleagues. If everyone is okay with that, so much the better.
Conservative
Kenny Chiu Conservative Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Chair, we have no problem. We would agree with Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe's request.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Welcome to our second panel of witnesses. We wish you were here with us in person, although we are all virtual.
Welcome to all of you. I think we've all been introduced through the sound check process we've just gone through, but I will name all of you.
From CARE Colombia in Bogota we have Marten Mylius, country director. From Doctors Without Borders we have Mr. Joe Belliveau, executive director, as well as Jason Nickerson, humanitarian affairs adviser. From OBAT Canada we have Dr. Shujaat Wasty, founder and CEO.
Gentlemen, if you need interpretation, at the bottom of your screen you'll see a globe and you'll be able to pick English or French, or if you are bilingual, you won't have to change anything.
Make sure that you mute your mikes when you are not speaking.
I will give you a 30-second warning when the time is coming to an end for the particular member who is asking questions.
On that note, we're going to start with Marten.
Marten, you're going to have the floor for five minutes for your introductory statements, and then the others will also get five minutes.
Marten, the floor is yours.
Marten Mylius Country Director, CARE Colombia
Thank you very much.
Refugees and migrants keep pouring out of Venezuela. In about five years more than five million Venezuelans were driven out of their country by an unprecedented political, social and economic collapse. The vast majority of those who were uprooted now reside in South American host countries. However, they find themselves embroiled in a daily struggle for basic human dignity, shelter, food for their children or health services for the sick. It is the largest exodus in recent memory in South America and it has not stopped.
Colombia, which shares a 2,000 kilometre long porous border, bears the brunt of the burden. Today Colombia holds 1.8 million Venezuelans. Like other countries in the region, Colombia has demonstrated incredible generosity, though it begins to wear thin. The pandemic has hit Colombia hard. It is among the 10 worst affected countries globally. Its aggressive measures to curb the spread has left a severe economic dent. Millions of Colombians lost their jobs and 15% of the population had to cut down the number of meals to one a day. Red cloths were dangling from the windows across the country as a desperate plea for help.
The pandemic not only worsened this humanitarian need; it created a whole new dynamic. Venezuelans across the region had been working mainly in informal and unregulated work. Strict quarantine measures imposed in late March had cut hundreds of thousands off their income sources. The ripple effect rocked the region. Suddenly, thousands found themselves without a roof as they could no longer pay their rent. In Bogota, informal camps sprang up. A trek began as thousands ventured back to Venezuela from across the region. Some walked all the way from Chile. By September, more than a 100,000 Venezuelans had returned.
As many restrictions in Colombia were lifted in September, the tide turned again. Thousands crossed the border again on a daily basis. Nowadays though, they only have trochos to get to the other side, exposing them to narco-traffickers, guerrilleros, paramilitaries or criminal gangs. The tragedy of disappearances in the border region is a symptom of an unacknowledged and unattended crisis causing displacement, confinement and a mounting wave of threats and assassinations of civil society leaders. We're talking about a resurfacing armed conflict raging wherever illegal economies thrive in Colombia.
CARE works along the so-called routes of the caminantes. These are Venezuelans working along the main arteries of Colombia seeking to get to urban centres or neighbouring countries. Due to the impact of the pandemic, they now find a reduced support infrastructure as many had struggled to meet sanitary standards. We find compared to an average population caminantes have a much larger percentage of pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. Almost all of them are considered by CARE and our local partners, doctors and nurses at high-risk of experiencing complications.
As the health system in Venezuela has been crippled, antenatal or postnatal care has never been provided to these women or adolescent girls. Maternal death has been much higher in the border region than in the rest of Colombia. This is due to the added burden of refugees and migrants, but also due to the lack of access. This means that being undocumented is the major factor here influencing vulnerability. More than half have no legal status and are thus excluded from the labour market or health services. This really drives rates of sexual exploitation and survival sex that we found to be rampant in the border region. Survivors of sexual abuse and violence are frequently attended to by our teams.
Turning to our main recommendations, first, the international community needs to recognize that the Venezuela refugee migration crisis is in full swing, and that it is coming up now against host populations in South America that are already suffering from the pandemic. These people are afraid and are increasingly unwilling or unable to host another wave of migrants.
Second, the international community needs to acknowledge and address the ways that migration is changing dynamics in areas affected by internal conflict along the border with Venezuela and Ecuador.
Finally, women and girls require gender sensitive humanitarian attention that supports and enables them to identify and address the protection needs brought about by displacement, conflict and the pandemic.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Marten.
Now we'll hear from Mr. Belliveau and Mr. Nickerson.
Joe Belliveau Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the subcommittee for the opportunity to present to you this evening.
The COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionally impacting the world's most vulnerable. For many of the men, women and children who live in formal and informal camps, receptions centres and detention centres, COVID has been used as a justification to further impose restrictions on their ability to access the services they need.
In September, with only one case reported at the time, Greek authorities imposed a quarantine on the people living in Moria camp on Lesbos island, trapping 13,000 people in a camp that long before COVID was an overcrowded public health disaster, one that ultimately burned to the ground a few weeks after the quarantine was imposed.
On the central Mediterranean, European governments citing COVID-19 as a justification have failed to respond to overloaded dinghies in distress in their search and rescue zones and declined a place of safety for disembarkation of NGO search and rescue vessels.
COVID has direct medical and public health impacts that we all know, and which disproportionally impact the most vulnerable, but our primary message to this subcommittee is about the secondary or the ripple effects of this pandemic on migrant refugees and other people on the move.
In Cox's Bazar, where more than 850,000 Rohingya refugees are crammed into 26 square kilometres of land, these secondary effects are being felt through the reduced presence of humanitarian personnel and agencies. Medical and humanitarian activities have been deprioritized, leading to devastating consequences for the camp's residents.
Despite a lack of any significant number of COVID-19 cases, humanitarian [Technical difficulty—Editor] in Cox's Bazar remains stuck in the containment at all costs mode of operation, and a humanitarian presence is still reduced in much the way that it was during the critical phase of the outbreak.
These restrictions have very real consequences. The health impact of nearly eight months of restrictions cannot be underestimated. MSF has seen an increase in the acuity of patients at health facilities, indicating delayed health seeking behaviour. For example, the percentage of complex pregnancies in one of MSF's health facilities in Cox's Bazar has risen from 3.7% in January to 19% in October, undoubtedly a consequence of reduced sexual and reproductive health activity.
There has also been an escalation in the severity of clinical presentations for mental health problems, again, likely related to the widespread deprioritization of preventive psychosocial care. For example, between April and July, the number of monthly suicide attempts doubled at MSF's Kutupalong facility.
We also witness a deprioritization and general absence of protection services on the ground, such as safe spaces, access to justice, education activities and others.
There needs to be a safe return to regular humanitarian activities in the camps, including health services. Everyday health needs do not go away in the face of the pandemic. People continue to need access to emergency obstetric care to manage complicated deliveries. People need access to anti-malarials to prevent and treat malaria. Children need routine vaccinations to help prevent measles, polio and other diseases. Antiretrovirals are still needed for people living with HIV, and the list goes on.
We need to resume services, but we also need to close gaps that have been created. For example, we need vaccination catch-up campaigns to recover significant lost ground in immunization over the past eight months.
In Colombia, where MSF has worked since 1985, we witnessed a similar dynamic. Beginning in March of this year, the COVID crisis increased [Technical difficulty—Editor] between host communities and migrant Venezuelans who were seen as breaking the quarantine and spreading the disease. These tensions were not new, but they were certainly exacerbated by COVID.
MSF continued to provide assistance to Colombians as well as to Venezuelan migrants in Colombia throughout the COVID crisis in our projects in Tibú, Norte de Santander, and Arauca.
MSF saw very few COVID cases among migrants in Colombia, but those migrants faced more hardships, such as more exclusion from the health system. Overall the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the livelihoods of migrants in the country. COVID led food halls and shelters to close, causing huge distress to people who face mass evictions from cheap accommodations as incomes disappeared, and had to camp out and sleep on the streets or rely on cheap food to survive.
With lockdown measures in place and restrictions on medical services to focus on COVID-19 care taking effect, access to primary health care was limited and in-person consultations declined.
Today the ripple effects of this pandemic continue to be felt. MSF teams continue to see and respond to thousands of suspected and confirmed COVID cases in our projects every month. We know from experience that migrants and people on the move are often excluded from accessing health services through health systems, leading to the devastating impacts that our teams witness on the ground.
Looking ahead, significant questions remain about how and when COVID-19 vaccines will reach people outside of formal health systems who lack access to routine and preventative health services, and who most certainly risk being excluded from COVID vaccination. [Technical difficulty—Editor] needed to prepare for and respond to COVID. However, this vigilance and response cannot come—
Liberal
Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders
Yes, I'll conclude here.
A high level of vigilance is needed to prepare for and respond to COVID. However, this vigilance and response cannot come at the expense of ensuring a safe, dignified and high-quality routine health service.
Liberal
Dr. Shujaat Wasty Founder and Board Member, OBAT Canada
Mr. Chair, members of the subcommittee and fellow members of the panel, good evening. Bonsoir.
As someone who has volunteered internationally over the past 13 years, I'm here this evening in my capacity as founder and board member of OBAT Canada, a volunteer-based charity. Our primary focus has been on helping the largely neglected Urdu-speaking displaced population in Bangladesh living in squalid camps for almost 50 years now, but through that work in Bangladesh, I was brought to the suffering of the Rohingya people when the crisis escalated in 2017.
I've personally been to the Rohingya refugee camps multiple times. To say that the Rohingya are a persecuted people is a gross understatement. I was well aware of the harrowing details of the genocide prior to going to the camps, but nothing could have prepared me for meeting with survivors face to face. What can I say to someone who witnessed her husband and young children viciously killed and who then was raped repeatedly by numerous armed men?
There are hundreds of thousands of Rohingya men, women and children, each with their own individual stories of unfathomable cruelty. Many aid workers working with Rohingya refugees have admitted to being left shaken by what they have heard and seen. I can only describe it as a tsunami of misery.
Yet even in the bleakest of situations, the resilience of the Rohingya people is awe-inspiring. The courage of the Rohingya women in particular is unparalleled. Having faced the worst of the worst and now enduring the misery of their new reality, they are trying to survive against the most difficult of odds.
As is our tradition, many Canadians have selflessly responded by giving generously or volunteering on the ground or through advocacy efforts. Early on, our OBAT team worked all around the clock to build and repair shelters, distribute food and other basic items, and establish and operate our health initiatives, as well as safe learning spaces for children.
On that note, I'd just like to take a moment to acknowledge the unanimous vote by our Parliament in 2018, which recognized the crimes committed against the Rohingya people as genocide and thereby brought more international attention to their plight.
The refugee camps in Bangladesh remain overcrowded, the terrain is precarious, there are serious hygiene risks and an unforgiving climate and, of course, there are real risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of November 11, there have been over 15,600 COVID tests conducted in the camps, with 348 confirmed cases and 126 others either in isolation or in quarantine. There have been 10 deaths, unfortunately.
While these numbers appear to be significantly better than those of the host community in nearby Cox's Bazar, it's important to consider the numbers of tests being conducted with respect to the overall population of the refugee camps. Also, the camps had entry-and-exit restrictions even before the pandemic. Since then, access has been reduced further. While these measures may have helped in the prevention of major COVID-19 outbreaks, they've unfortunately had other adverse effects.
One such example is our OBAT health post in Kutupalong, which used to be reliant on international volunteers to be able to treat 250 Rohingya patients daily before the pandemic. However, we have since had to rely solely on reduced local staff. Our capacity diminished to as low as only 40 patients per day earlier this year. More recently, it has increased to over 100, but not being able to see as many patients leaves the refugees vulnerable to poor health conditions being untreated and worsening, or even the potential of other outbreaks.
The threat of the pandemic has also suspended all schools for months now in Bangladesh, including our learning centres in the camps. These centres otherwise provide a safe space for Rohingya children. We have tried to employ alternate strategies, such as distributing learning material to students to take home and having our educators meet with them one-on-one at their homes, but it hasn't been easy and the quality is undoubtedly not the same.
The large number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh can be difficult to grasp, but I want to stress that this enormous population is made up of individuals. Each of them deserves safety, peace, to love and be loved, to laugh and live with dignity and the right to a better future.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Dr. Wasty.
Now we're going to commence with questions. We'll only have time for one round, members, so each party is going to have seven minutes to question the witnesses.
We're going to start with the Liberals. The honourable Judy Sgro is our first questioner.
Judy, please unmute.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal Humber River—Black Creek, ON
No matter how many times a day we do that, we still get stuck sometimes, so thank you, Mr. Chair.
Witnesses, there aren't words enough to be able to share my sincerity and gratitude to all of you for the important work that you do. You're the unsung heroes for so, so many people around the world. We're all wound up here with our own issues with COVID, and we have to be reminded that there are millions of people who are suffering and who will have a much harder time ever getting access to vaccinations and to the medication and so on, if they get any of it.
Can any of you mention to me what are you doing regarding COVID? Are they getting tested? How many people are actually able to get tested, whether it's in Colombia or in Bangladesh? I'm sure you don't have access to a lot of testing equipment, do you?
Whoever would like to lead off on that....
Mr. Belliveau?
Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders
Sorry. Same as you, I had to find that unmute button.
Thanks for the remarks. Yes, we do do testing. I can't give you data or figures, and testing has been an issue. It has been a problem—getting access to testing and getting real visibility on how extensive the problem is and how it's been evolving. Even bigger than the testing problem, though, are the secondary impacts, the stigmatization that has gone along with certain groups, especially migrant groups. We've seen that in the Mediterranean. We've seen it in the camps in Cox's Bazar and in Colombia amongst Venezuelans. We've also seen the justification of COVID as a way to restrict movement—movement of people who may get stuck at borders and put in quarantine, movement within camps to health facilities, or movement of the humanitarian responders themselves to be able to get access.
While testing is important and we do it, we see that the bigger issues that we're facing, the bigger humanitarian crisis that we're [Technical difficulty—Editor] a secondary effect.
Founder and Board Member, OBAT Canada
I would echo what Mr. Belliveau just said.
As I mentioned in the opening statement, our capacity had to be diminished. What also we've had to do to adapt our health post to the new COVID reality is designate an isolation corner, as we call it. Our space is obviously already limited in our health post—we offer a lot of services—but we've had to designate space at the health post as an isolation corner. If there is any suspected case of COVID, what would happen would be that we would immediately transfer the patient to that isolation corner and then immediately contact the relevant isolation centre and have them come and transport the patient to the isolation centre. It has required some level of procedural changes. With the space being constrained, we've had to be a bit more efficient with our space, so there have been some health-related changes that have had to be implemented for our health post.