Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 26th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Welcome, everybody. This is meeting number five of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Pursuant to the order of reference of October 27, 2020, the subcommittee will begin the study of the impacts of COVID-19 on displaced persons, particularly in Venezuela and Myanmar.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would encourage all participants to mute their microphones when they're not speaking and to address all comments through the chair. When you have 30 seconds left in your questioning time, I'm going to raise a card to indicate that you have 30 seconds left.

Also, for interpretation purposes, at the bottom of your screen you'll see a globe icon, which you'll be able to click and pick English or French, or if you are bilingual, you can just leave it as is.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses for our first panel.

From Amnesty International, we have Saad Hammadi, who is the regional campaigner for South Asia; and from Islamic Relief Canada, we have Zaid Al-Rawni, who is the chief executive officer.

Saad Hammadi, you have five minutes for your opening statement, please.

[Saad Hammadi, Regional Campaigner, South Asia, Amnesty International]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss the human rights situation of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh during COVID-19.

I would like to begin by stating that Bangladesh has demonstrated commendable generosity in hosting nearly a million Rohingya refugees since 2017.

In January this year, the Government of Bangladesh announced that it would allow Rohingya children, who constitute almost half of the refugee population, access to education under the academic curriculum followed in Myanmar. Unfortunately, because of COVID-19, the introduction of the pilot program under the new curriculum was delayed. We hope that the Bangladeshi government will gradually reopen the learning facilities, as this is important to protect the children from becoming a lost generation.

We must acknowledge that despite limited testing and isolation capacities, Bangladesh has managed to keep the outbreak of the virus in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar low and under control so far, with the support of international humanitarian assistance.

During this time, Bangladesh has also allowed nearly 700 Rohingya men, women and children to disembark after they were stranded at sea for several months when other governments in the region actively pushed away boats carrying them.

We cannot but emphasize that Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are among the most disempowered people in the world. In our interviews with the refugees, we have time and again heard that they wish to return to their homes when it is safe for them to do so, when they can exercise their rights as anyone else in Myanmar can.

A conducive condition for safe, voluntary and dignified return of the Rohingya to Myanmar is also contingent upon the role that Canada and other members of the international community play. Until the situation changes in Myanmar, they remain confined to the camps in Bangladesh.

What they need is that their voices be heard in shaping the decisions that affect them. In September 2020, Amnesty International released a briefing, “Let us speak for our rights”, which highlights the sentiments of Rohingya refugees about their access to health care, education, justice, information and freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and movement. The words in the title, borrowed from a young Rohingya refugee, reflect the community’s message to the world: they must be allowed to speak for themselves.

In the absence of a clearly outlined refugee consultation process, what we have witnessed is that the concerns of refugees are sometimes not recognized by the authorities. For instance, in the case of health care, which is key during the pandemic, refugees have been constrained by language barriers, disrespectful behaviour from some medical staff, and lack of access to information about available health care services in the camps.

Because of the persistent marginalization that the Rohingya people have experienced for decades at home and in the places where they have sought refuge, we see that they are afraid of repercussions for speaking out or sharing reservations about decisions enforced upon them by authorities.

In May 2020, Bangladeshi authorities took more than 300 Rohingya refugees to Bhashan Char, a remote island in the Bay of Bengal that has been developed by the country’s navy. More Rohingya refugees have shared with Amnesty International that they could be relocated to the island very soon. They have also said that they are afraid to relocate to an island that they know very little about, but they have signed up for it out of compulsion rather than choice.

A Rohingya woman, for instance, has said that she has registered to go to the island because her husband is there. Two others have cited lack of co-operation from camp authorities in having their shelters repaired and being advised to relocate to the island instead.

A due process consisting of refugee leadership and consultation, as well as a technical and protection assessment by the United Nations, is critical to ensure that the relocation is safe and voluntary and that it follows informed consent.

It is therefore important that Bangladesh’s government adopt a publicly accessible, transparent and rights-respecting policy that outlines a framework of refugee participation in the decisions that affect them.

International humanitarian aid is crucial to support the Rohingya refugees, but Canada and other members of the international community must encourage Bangladesh’s government, work with the government, and offer their technical assistance and expertise in developing the policy.

The Rohingya refugee situation in Bangladesh requires the local, international and Rohingya community to work together to find a sustainable solution.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Hammadi.

Now we'll hear from Mr. Al-Rawni, for five minutes, please.

[Zaid Al-Rawni, Chief Executive Officer, Islamic Relief Canada]

Thank you. It's a pleasure to see some familiar faces on this little Zoom call. It's great to see you all.

The first thing I will say is that I was part of the first deployment to Cox's Bazar when refugees started streaming out of Myanmar's Rakhine State into Cox's Bazar. The conditions have only worsened since they first fled from Rakhine State to Cox's Bazar.

We have to imagine that in the best-case scenario in which many of us live, with regular handwashing, with the capacity for most of us to socially distance, with the kind of government support many people have had, COVID-19 has still been a huge problem. It has brought major economies to their knees, and the effects on the most vulnerable in those societies have been quite severe.

Concerning the Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar specifically, where you have 890,000 or maybe a million people confined in 26 square kilometres across 32 or 38 different camps, that is a huge number of people. Latrines are haphazardly dropped here, there and everywhere. There's no actual sewage facility that you would recognize, living in a city in Canada.

It's a very difficult position for many of those refugees. Before COVID-19, the Bangladeshi authorities already, in trying to contain.... They already had their own challenges, and we have to acknowledge—I agree with Saad—that the Bangladeshis have been very generous in hosting this many people. That has to be acknowledged, as well as the generosity of Canada.

Canada has played a hugely progressive role vis-à-vis.... Bob Rae's report and Bob Rae's interactions with the Rohingya file have been quite impressive. Despite all of that, the challenges for the Rohingya community were quite severe already.

After COVID became a global pandemic and so many governments were grappling with what to do, how to respond, how to reduce the risks, stop the spread, contain the spread, etc., the number of people allowed into the camps was reduced even further. The number of vehicles into the camps was reduced even further.

Some people have said they've found really creative ways of distributing aid, but some of our colleagues have said that actually, there are a few families who have been left out or they're not getting as much support as they need.

Add to that the creaking—and I say “creaking” generously—health services that are offered to the Rohingya refugees pre-COVID. Post-COVID, those health services are a lot less accessible at best and are totally inaccessible in many cases, simply because the movement in and out is restricted, as are the types of medical professionals, the medical personnel you would normally see from NGOs like ours or from such others as Doctors Without Borders, etc.

It's quite a challenge for many of these families, and so you have that issue permeating or adding a complex layer to an already complex situation.

Then you have the issue—most of this information I took from our field team, who are on the ground—of rumour in Cox's Bazar and what people are hearing, how they're hearing it, how information flows in and out about what COVID-19 is, how you prevent it and these types of things.

If we think of what's happening south of the border with the various communities who are anti-maskers or whatever name you want to label them with—people who have been resistant to scientific data because of the way it's served or how it's presented, and this in one of the most progressive countries, one of the most scientific nations on earth—the situation in Cox's Bazar is fraught. People aren't sure whom to believe, what to believe, where information comes from and goes to. They're suspicious about everything, actually. That constrains the capacity of the few health workers who are trying to do things.

In my final minute, I will say this. I think the actual effects of COVID-19 upon the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are yet unknown and untold. That is the actual truth, because we do not have enough actual data, facts, surveys, and so on to say this is where we are, and this has been the consequence of thing x, which in this case is the COVID pandemic.

With that, I'll concede the floor.

Thank you, Peter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you very much for your opening statements.

This brings us to our first round of questions. Each member will have seven minutes to ask questions of the witnesses before us.

We're going to start with the Liberals and Mr. Zuberi for seven minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Witnesses, I want to thank both of you for being here and for sharing your testimony, your experiences and the very, very important work that you do.

You're both experts in what's happening in the Rohingya refugee camps, which is why you're here today. I want to ask you a question around long-term planning.

In your opinion, how has long-term planning been impacted by COVID-19? Have there been adjustments? Have you seen any adjustments happen on the ground? Can you enlighten us on that?

[Zaid Al-Rawni]

I'll comment very briefly.

We're still grappling. Definitely there have been several adjustments in the ongoing projects. We had a project specifically targeting violence against women and girls, gender-based violence, in the camps. The first phase of the project was a data-gathering segment. We had to pause the project because our researchers couldn't access the camps. They had no way of accessing the camps to do the research.

We know from existing research and anecdotal research that incidents of violence against women and girls had increased, and that's a result of many factors, including the pressures of confinement that the Rohingya refugees find themselves in as well as the inability of families and people to work. The livelihood issue is a complete.... Everyone relies on food aid and humanitarian aid from organizations like UNHCR, Islamic Relief, World Vision, etc. Nobody can go out and work. You have a few volunteers who are paid cash for their volunteer work, but the actual idea of having a job doesn't exist. So we've postponed that project.

We've postponed a few medical missions we had planned to help with more chronic health issues. They've had to be put on pause. We've already mentioned the last time we sent medical physicians from Canada to Rohingya and how the traumas they came back with or the stories they came back with were quite extensive. This elongated period in which health professionals haven't been able to gain access for non-COVID-related issues can only, I assume, have made things worse. That's something that has to be looked at.

[Saad Hammadi]

I think to add to what he has said very rightly is the fact that this is a protracted refugee situation. More than 750,000 refugees have arrived since August 2017 and have added to an existing group of Rohingya refugees who were in Bangladesh. There is no clarity with regard to how and when this repatriation will happen, and that is the eventual interest as has been agreed by Bangladesh and the international community, that the Rohingya refugees should have a safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return to Myanmar.

That is the end goal for Bangladesh, but until that happens, there are various concerns in the current setting in which the refugees live. It's about six and a half dozen acres of land in Cox's Bazar that have been brought up by cutting hills and forests, and you have a million refugees in 34 camps within that space. Now the Bangladesh government has created a space on a remote island, as I have mentioned, in Bhashan Char, where they propose to take about 100,000 Rohingya refugees to sort of ease the space—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

Unfortunately, I think there is an issue with interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We have an issue with translation.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

It seems to be working well now.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Erica Pereira]

Yes, it's going okay.

Mr. Hammadi, could you move the microphone a bit closer to your mouth, please?

Thank you.

[Saad Hammadi]

Sure.

As I was saying, Burma's government has proposed to relocate 100,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhashan Char, which is a remote island in the Bay of Bengal. What we are suggesting, and what the refugee community itself as well as the international community time and again have said is that due process is important to ensure that their relocation is voluntary, that it is safe, that it has all the other components to make moving the refugees to the island feasible, and that humanitarian assistance and operations will be able to be shared between the mainland Cox's Bazar and Bhashan Char.

All of these considerations really depend on refugee leadership and their participation in these decisions. Clearly, even if you're talking about repatriation, which is what Bangladesh is interested in doing to ease the pressure on it, that will have to come from the refugees themselves, and given the marginalization that the refugees have faced over decades, it's important that they be empowered.

This is a group of people who have not had access to adequate education and who have not been able to participate in many decisions for many years. It is important that they be groomed to make those conscious decisions, whether with regard to the service provisions of the camps or a relocation or a repatriation.

In all of these cases, what is really important is that there be a clear policy outlined to ensure refugee participation and wider consultation with the host community, which has been affected as well, with the other communities and with the humanitarian agencies.

At this time, however, I'm afraid that no clear policy on that has been outlined.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

In the 30 seconds left, please tell us what Canada can do to ameliorate the situation.

[Saad Hammadi]

I think it would be important that this discussion about the refugee participation be pursued in a transparent way and that there be a policy mechanism to ensure that there is clarity on how refugees are involved in each of the decisions.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Now we'll move to Mr. Chiu from the Conservatives for seven minutes.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Hammadi.

Based on Mr. Al-Rawni's testimony about the sealing off of Cox's Bazar, do you think there is any reason to believe that the Bangladeshi government is trying to build a COVID bubble for the refugee camp?

[Saad Hammadi]

The restrictions that have been put in place have proved to be relatively good for the refugee community, because clearly in Bangladesh, as we have seen, the spread of the virus has been quite large. It is a large population and it's difficult to control. I think it was somewhat essential to create that space to sort of restrict some of the access into the camp during this time to limit the spread of the virus, and it has done quite well in this time.

That being said, there are other concerns that have emerged as a result of the restrictions. For instance, for quite a period of time the humanitarian and protection services have been limited to only remote case management, which has meant that if there are issues of gender-based violence, those have to be dealt with over the phone, and that's not always comfortable. Many refugees have not felt comfortable speaking about the issues they have faced during this time.

It has also affected the livelihood of some of the refugees who have volunteered in the documentation process and other sorts of activities, which they haven't been able to do during this time. That relates particularly to the areas of gender-based violence and discrimination, because we have noticed that in some places women in particular have told us that they have not been allowed to go out of their homes and they are not able to share this with anyone.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Al-Rawni.

Previously we heard from Mr. Hammadi that the goal is to repatriate the refugees to Myanmar. Do you think they would have a safe home to be repatriated back to?

[Zaid Al-Rawni]

Every Rohingya refugee I spoke to when I was in Cox's Bazar said the same thing: “We want to go back home.” When I went to Rakhine State and to Sittwe, I spoke to IDPs, internally displaced people, who've been kind of herded into what look like camps—these really horrific spaces—and all of them want to stay in Rakhine State, to go back to their farms.

To your question as to whether it's safe for them to do so, it won't be safe until and unless there's a mechanism to guarantee their safety, leveraged by the international community. Back to Sameer's question on what Canada can do, Canada has done quite well, but this needs a wider coalition of international actors, who can say to the Government of Burma—the Government of Myanmar—that this group has to be afforded their rights.

Is it safe to do so now? I don't think so.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

I'm sorry. I guess I didn't qualify my question further. I was actually referring to COVID situations. In their homeland, where they came from, how has the COVID situation been? If they were to be repatriated back there, are they facing a worse situation in terms of COVID?

[Zaid Al-Rawni]

I think COVID will be the least of their concerns. I don't think any of them are concerned too much about COVID in the scheme of things, because the persecution and the violence they have faced, and that they feel they are likely to face, will have a much wider or a much more direct impact.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Right.

I have a couple of questions about Islamic Relief Canada's effort. Our research has shown us that Islamic Relief was actually being barred from servicing and providing aid to Rohingyas in the the Cox's Bazar region. Is that still true? How is that impacting your ability to help them?

[Zaid Al-Rawni]

Islamic Relief Canada is part of a global federation called Islamic Relief. Locally in Bangladesh they're very active, and they continue to be active. There are a few online rumours that say we are not allowed, that we're banned and we're not allowed to work in Bangladesh. We absolutely are. We have an office in Dhaka and sub-offices throughout Bangladesh.

However, to operate with the Rohingya community directly in Bangladesh, you need something called an FD 7 licence. All of our work in Bangladesh has been with local partners, so we are able to operate. We are able to support the Rohingya community, and we are able to go in and out. We have sent delegations and can continue to work, but we don't have this very important document, an FD 7 licence, that allows us to work directly with the Rohingya community as our own agency.

However, funds that are generated by Islamic Relief Canada can reach the Rohingya community in Bangladesh.