Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 25th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

I call this meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone.

I'd like to welcome everyone here this morning.

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It's very apt that we're doing this study on women today.

This is the 20th meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. We are meeting today in a hybrid format, pursuant to the order of June 23, 2022. We're meeting both here in person and on Zoom.

For those attending via Zoom who are new to the committee, you have interpretation through the globe icon at the bottom of your screen. I would ask that you wait until you're recognized. When you give your opening remarks, I'll give you a hand signal when you have one minute left. I will raise my hand at one minute and then at 30 seconds. Then I'll lean in and allow you to conclude your five minutes.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Friday, September 23, 2022, we will commence our study on the rights and freedoms of women globally and on women in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

We have with us in this first panel three esteemed witnesses. From the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, we have Jacqueline O'Neill, the ambassador for women, peace and security. She is here in person and will be testifying first.

From Human Rights Watch, we have Farida Deif, Canada director. She is joining us by video conference.

Also by video conference, we have Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, founder and chief executive officer of the International Civil Society Action Network.

Without further ado, Ms. O'Neill, you may please proceed.

[Jacqueline O'Neill, Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the committee for initiating this very important study.

To be a woman fighting for rights and peace has never been risk-free. I'll never forget, about 15 years ago, a Kenyan politician telling me that when she went to campaign events, she wore two pairs of very tight jeans to prevent thugs associated with the opposition party from raping her at her own campaign events. As well, a Colombian woman told me just a few years ago that she refused an award from her own government for brokering a peace deal, because she knew that the recognition could lead to credible death threats to her family.

Now we have data showing that the risks facing women human rights defenders and peacebuilders are increasing. Last month, the UN Secretary-General reported that they “have increasingly been targeted with attacks that silence their advocacy and prevent them from participating in public life.” He said that with respect to women's rights, “we are going backwards” and are “experiencing a reversal of generational gains”.

Afghanistan is without a doubt an extreme example, where the Taliban is trying to completely erase women from public life. It’s an approach that many activists have described as gender apartheid.

We’ve witnessed attacks against peaceful protesters in Iran, Sudan and Myanmar, where the army has killed hundreds of protesters.

We have also witnessed sexual violence linked to conflicts in Ethiopia and Haiti, as well as in the context of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Indigenous women fighting for the climate have been murdered.

Dangerous disinformation campaigns target human rights defenders as well as women fighting for peace.

Why are we seeing these trends?

One of the main reasons relates to attacks on democracy. In general, authoritarianism and misogyny mutually reinforce each other. Authoritarian leaders often perceive women who defend human rights and peace as a direct threat to their power. It is therefore in those leaders’ interest to silence these women.

The government of Canada reacts in various ways. I will briefly describe only five of them, but it would be my pleasure to discuss them further during our conversation.

First, our starting assumption is that women human rights defenders and peacebuilders face significant risks because of their work. Particularly when they seek funding, the burden should not be on them to prove that their work can be dangerous. Our programming support to women peacebuilders now includes specific funding related to safety, recognizing they must sometimes buy locks or surveillance cameras for their offices or undertake digital security training.

Also, with civil society's input, we develop the “Voices at Risk” guidelines to give practical advice to Canadian diplomats to support human rights defenders.

Second, we’re trying to obtain more funding for feminist organizations fighting the erosion of women’s rights.

We have made significant investments, but we know that it is not enough. We must try to increase the quantity of resources, increase flexibility and improve accessibility.

Third, we're determined to listen to women human rights defenders and peacebuilders themselves to understand the changing nature of the threats they're facing. For example, they tell us that they're often the subject of online abuse and threats, and we're learning that these threats made against women online are more likely than threats against men to translate into physical violence.

In Moldova, just a couple of weeks ago, I asked a journalist about threats made against her and her peers. She explained that she and her team of four journalists had recently completed a study, an investigation, on corruption within the government. All four of them received death threats, and two women on the team had their photos and contact information posted across dozens of prostitution-related websites.

Dialogue with Canada-based diaspora refugees and women human rights defenders and peacebuilders has also been essential to understand their unique needs while here in Canada. For example, some have shared that unlike many other refugees, they prefer not to be located in areas with significant diaspora populations from their home countries because that can increase their vulnerabilities. Some have also raised the need for greater collaboration and coordination among federal partners.

Fourth, Canada is making an effort to increase this essential work’s visibility, which is increasingly under threat. We are trying to raise awareness about it, for example during speeches and statements.

Fifth, we are proactively creating coalitions and networks, some official and some not, to correct the false narrative that gender equality is a Western idea.

To save time, I’ll stop here. I’m happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. O’Neill.

Now we'll continue with Farida Deif from Human Rights Watch for five minutes, please.

[Farida Deif, Canada Director, Human Rights Watch Canada]

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson and honourable members of Parliament, for inviting me to appear before this subcommittee.

I'll start my remarks today by addressing Afghanistan, a situation that is devastatingly grim, especially for women and girls. Severe food insecurity, an economic crisis and human rights abuses targeting women and girls have brought the country to the brink of humanitarian collapse, eroding decades of development and gender equality.

Over the past 15 months, the Taliban have effectively removed women from public life. They imposed a de facto ban on girls' secondary education and banned women from most forms of employment. A May order requires women to cover their faces whenever they're in public and leave home only when necessary, and imposes punishment for non-compliance on male family members, essentially compelling men to become the enforcers of Taliban rule on their own female relatives.

The Taliban dismantled the system to respond to gender-based violence, created new barriers for women accessing health care, blocked women aide workers from doing their jobs and attacked women's rights protesters with impunity.

Thus far, the international response to this crisis has been deeply inadequate. While many countries have issued statements, expressed deep concern and called on the Taliban to end the rights violations, concrete coordinated practical actions have been few and far between. We expect countries, especially those that have a feminist foreign policy like Canada, to be much more active in opposing Taliban violations. We ask these governments to coordinate closely with each other, use all mechanisms and measures at their disposal, including sanctions against Taliban leaders, and make the rights of Afghan women and girls a major priority in their foreign policy.

Turning to Saudi Arabia, it's clear that the kingdom is not progressing on human rights, despite promised reforms. The space for dissent has significantly shrunk, and new legislation has codified the abusive male guardianship of women, which essentially renders them permanent legal minors. In many ways, Saudi Arabia has become even more repressive.

A case in point, in August, a Saudi appeals court dramatically increased the prison sentence of Salma al-Shehab, a doctoral student, from six to 34 years, based solely on her Twitter activity. The sentence is believed to be the longest ever imposed on a Saudi woman for her peaceful online expression.

Another example of these hollow reforms is when Saudi authorities released three prominent women's rights activists from prison last year. They were previously arrested for publicly supporting the very reforms Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says he's seeking to promote. While they're no longer behind bars, they remain banned from travel and are serving suspended sentences, allowing the authorities to return them to prison for any perceived criminal activity.

Saudi authorities clearly feel empowered to continue to crush dissent, and Saudi women are among their primary targets. Canada should ensure that it promptly and publicly condemns these actions, rulings and decisions, which further shrink the public space and target Saudi women.

And finally, there's Iran. Protests that started following the death in September of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman in the custody of the abusive morality police—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair. I am sorry to interrupt. The translation is not working for me. The testimony is too important for me not to....

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you for that, Ms. McPherson.

It's working well now, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe is saying.

We'll continue.

[Farida Deif]

Thank you.

While protests began as a response to Mahsa Amini's death and the oppressive hijab laws, they've transformed into broad-based grievances against repressive, unrepresentative and corrupt ruling authorities.

Iranian authorities have ruthlessly cracked down on these protests with excessive and lethal force. We should remember that one month before Mahsa's death, on August 15, a new presidential decree sanctioned women for showing their hair on social media, with female government employees facing dismissal from their jobs if they have profile pictures without their hijabs. The head of the morality police also announced plans to enforce dress codes through digital surveillance of public spaces.

Canada has shown strong leadership in response to the Iran crisis. Just yesterday, Canada supported a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council establishing a fact-finding mission with a mandate to investigate alleged human rights violations related to these protests. The government has also imposed a series of widespread targeted sanctions on Iranian officials. While we support Human Rights Watch measures like targeted sanctions on those responsible for serious human rights violations, we actively encourage states like Canada to do their due diligence. For anything beyond individual designations, we encourage Canada to consult with experts and those who can help assess the potential unintended harm on civil society.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Deif.

Now we'll continue with Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, please, for five minutes.

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, International Civil Society Action Network]

Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity.

First, they closed the schools. Then they stopped women from going to work. Then they came to put the ban on women going to parks. The latest news from Afghanistan is that women aren’t allowed to buy SIM cards. This is the Afghanistan of 2022.

Could the Taliban takeover have been prevented at the negotiations in Doha? The answer to that question is to ask you, if Afghan women peacebuilders and activists, women's youth delegations and representatives from minorities had been present as delegations in those talks, would the outcomes have been the same? Would Mr. Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, have been able to agree to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners even as the Taliban was bombing maternity clinics and schools?

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.

My name is Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini. I am the founder and CEO of ICAN. We specialize in the practice of inclusive and gender-responsive peacemaking and the prevention of violent extremism. We spearhead the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership, WASL, which is an alliance of locally rooted, globally connected, independent women-led peacebuilding organizations in 40 countries affected by fragility, violence and closing political space.

We're grateful to the Government of Canada for its support to us, including for ICAN's innovative peace fund and She Builds Peace campaign, which to date have disbursed $6.9 million to over 60 organizations in 31 countries, with grants ranging from $200 to $100,000.

I share this with you because the work that is happening on the ground at the front lines of countries affected by conflict and violence is often invisible. It is the work of women. It is not behind the headlines. They are ahead of the headlines.

The work that we at ICAN have done over the last few years is to provide the bridge between those local activists and the international community, and we couldn't have it done it without your help.

That said, the situation on the ground is bleak, and we have to be very sober about what we're facing. As 2022 draws to a close, women peacebuilders are finding themselves in the centre of a complex web of intersecting and escalating crises.

As we celebrate and draw attention to the women of Iran—and as an Iranian by heritage, I find it extremely moving to see how the world is supporting the women of Iran—I'm struck by how the Afghan women are still left behind. As we watch what is happening in Ukraine and provide the humanitarian support needed to Ukraine, my colleagues in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere, where wars have continued to be waged, are still struggling.

The Ukraine war and the shifting of finances and attention are impacting women in other places and in other contexts. We cannot forget them. We cannot forget that there's a world beyond our own borders and beyond our own regional interests.

In terms of the information I want to share with you today, I want to focus on what women peacebuilders in my network are saying now about the issues they're facing—the conflict, the crises, the climate change crises, things like floods and so forth, and their experiences from COVID.

What we saw happen during the COVID crisis was that the world forgot the people at the front lines of war and fragility. When the WHO issued orders to wash our hands with soap and water, my colleagues in Cameroon, Somalia and Yemen were saying, “We don't have soap, and we don't have water.”

What we saw happen was women become self-reliant. They shared information across our WhatsApp groups about how to make soap from natural products and how to make hand sanitizers. We shared information from the ICAN side about what was coming from the American CDC and elsewhere. What we realized is that the global solidarity and connectivity, the ecosystem we have, is essential for the work and survival of women peacebuilders and the communities they're helping out there.

We also saw that it is women peacebuilders who draw on the reserve of trust that they have in their communities to actually provide services. So, when we talk about the triple nexus of humanitarian, development and peacebuilding support, it's women on the ground who are doing that. Peacebuilding these days cannot be done if you're struggling to have water or if you're dealing with a drought or a flood. These things go together, and the women at the front lines are actually delivering these services.

They are, as my colleague Ambassador O'Neill mentioned, at incredible risk. It is lonely work. Peace work is not easy. In polarized societies, when communities are polarized, whether online or in real life, to be the bridge, to try to be the interlocutors, to try to find a mediated space in the middle, means that your life is at risk and that your family is often at risk.

We're seeing more and more how women are doing their advocacy through public campaigns. Through our She Builds Peace campaign, which Canada, again, has been supporting, we are reaching deep into societies and we're making the idea of being an activist for peace, equality and pluralism—recognition for peace work—something that many ordinary people want to participate in, young people especially.

At a time when the world is having so many difficulties, when the UN is struggling to raise the money for the humanitarian emergencies it already has and can't even raise a quarter of what it needs, these women and the activists on the ground who are running to protect their communities, who are running to take on the responsibility to protect, they are the actors who are there doing so non-violently. They are essential, and we need to support them. We need to foster the ecosystem. None of us can do this alone.

It is with this message I want to come to you: to ensure that the activists who are risking their lives are getting the support they need and that Canada and other countries are practising their own values by making sure that you are taking a gendered, responsive approach.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you.

Now we're going to go into questions and answers.

We'll give each member in the first round six minutes so that we can get to a brief second round.

We'll start off with Mr. Viersen for six minutes, please.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.

One of the things I'm interested in knowing about—and I have my intuition on this, but something tangible would be helpful, and all of your organizations have probably done work in this area—are the trend lines on some of these things. It feels to me like it's all getting worse. I was wondering if you can point us to a particular article, a particular study, and probably to work you are doing that gives us a trend line.

Is there a bright spot in the world? It feels like everywhere it's getting worse. I follow a lot of the religious freedom indexes from around the world. They note that out of 200 countries, everywhere either has stayed the same or has gotten worse. Out of 200 countries, there isn't improvement.

I'll start with the Human Rights Watch Canada organization. Could you give us bit of a sense of the trend lines on the work you do?

[Farida Deif]

Thank you so much for the question.

What we're seeing in terms of trends, while we're not documenting it very closely, is that the more there is a sort of rapprochement with repressive states—whether that is Saudi Arabia, like we've seen just recently with the Biden administration, or other states that are allowed to use large-scale summits, bilateral meetings and large sporting events as a way to perform a kind of image laundering and attempt to hide their repression—and the more states agree to that and don't call for accountability and don't criticize the repression against women and against all human rights advocates, we see an increase in impunity in terms of their actions.

I think that's why we're consistently calling for states, every time there is a women's rights activist who is detained, including in states that are allies to Canada.... This needs to be called out very publicly, because what we see is a normalization of these practices, a return to business as usual with repressive states that are allies or where there are strong interests. Then we see the trend unfortunately and increasingly deteriorating for women and for civil society writ large.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

ICAN, do you have a comment?

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

Thank you.

We know from studies that have been done that today only 3% of the world's population lives in countries with open conditions for civil society action and that generally global peacefulness has been declining for 11 of the past 14 years. That is a trend line that comes from the annual terrorism study and so forth.

I want to echo my colleague from Human Rights Watch about the double standards that we see. We don't criticize what's happening in Saudi Arabia or what is happening by Israeli activism in Palestine, but we do criticize countries that are not necessarily allies of the West, or we ignore countries like India and what is happening there right now in terms of the Muslim population. There are severe early warning signs.

The question is, what is the leverage that countries like Canada have? What we've seen in the case of Iran, Syria and elsewhere is that the blanket sanctions that affect a large swath of the population embolden the hardliners and have a tremendously detrimental impact on civil society and ordinary civilians. We need to make sure that we're not doing harm, that we're not adding harm.

Targeted sanctions, like the ones you've just introduced in the case of Iran, are much better in terms of ensuring that the public hears what you're against and what you're for.

We've done a lot of harm to the Syrian population and to the Iranian population with past blanket sanctions, and it's very hard to undo that kind of harm.

I'm happy to answer more.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You mentioned the terrorism list. Do you know of an organization that carries out this kind of work to rank countries, a list of them? I know that, in the religious freedom realm, there are a number of organizations that spend a lot of time ranking countries for religious freedom. Is there a list that you use for the work that you're doing?

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

There is the global terrorism index and the global peace index that are produced. I can share the details of the organization that provides that kind of ranking. It's an annual study that comes out that we draw on.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

It also sounds like you're recommending to continue using and maybe increase the use of the Magnitsky sanctions process.

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

Anything that can be specific and targeted to individuals and their ecosystem of friends and family and so forth is the direction to go. The types of sanctions that we've had historically, even if they don't.... For example, you have banking sanctions that were not meant to affect civilians, but the fact of the matter is that it has a chilling effect. Ordinary Iranians, even ordinary asylees who come abroad and try to open a bank account can't do so because banks are terrified of doing so.

Right now there is a real demand for increasing Internet connectivity, and technology companies are getting involved. If they are not given strong guarantees about being able not to face penalties.... It's one thing to say, “Come and set up the companies”, but if they're not given guarantees that they're not going to be penalized later on, companies are not going to take the risk. It really needs to be very tailored and targeted. The companies in the private sector, banking, etc. need to be given reassurances of where and how the sanctions rules are drawn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you.

We'll continue to our next questioner.

We have Ms. Vandenbeld for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think it's very noteworthy that we're meeting here today at the beginning of the 16 days of activism against violence against women.

I'd like to address my first question to Ambassador O'Neill.

I was glad to see that you, in your remarks, equated the decline and backsliding and threats to democracy with the increasing violence and threats against women. We're seeing right now that the polarization is no longer left and right. It is between authoritarianism or tyranny and democracy, and along with that the values of democracy, including gender equality, pluralism and diversity.

What I'd like to ask you is a little bit about that, about the fact that right now we're seeing a perfect storm between COVID-19, climate emergencies and increasing conflict, which is really causing the women of the world to be the ones suffering the most. At the same time, we're seeing an increase in gender conservatism. That's not just happening in authoritarian countries. We see it south of the border in the rollback of important hard-fought rights of women over their own bodies.

In this context, could you tell us a little bit about the need for global networks? How important is it that when women's voices are being silenced in one country, women in other countries are able to amplify and draw attention, and in so doing provide safety for those who are on the ground fighting?

The other question I have comes from our previous study in a previous Parliament in this committee on women human rights defenders. One of our recommendations at that time was that Canada create a human rights defenders immigration stream, because what we were hearing was that when things go bad, they go bad quickly.

Yesterday I was at a Dignity Network event, where I heard from a transgender woman living in a country where the legal structures are not helpful. She said that when it happens, she needs to get out in three hours. But they don't want to leave. It's not immigration. They're not refugees. These people want to return, want to keep fighting for their country. They just need temporary asylum, to be able to get out when it's hot, and then be able to go back when it's safer.

After that, the Government of Canada did create a human rights defenders stream of 250. I think we all agree we need more than that.

Would you give some advice about how we could tailor that so that it is more rapid and so that it is more reflective of the realities of human rights defenders on the ground?

Also, maybe elaborate a bit on how Canada could more readily foster global networks, even among parliamentarians, that would allow us to be able to amplify the voices and make sure that the women who are really fighting on the front lines are fully supported by the international community.

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

Sure.

One reason that this study.... I'm so happy that this committee has taken this up. We have to recognize that these attacks on gender equality and on women's rights are not haphazard. To the previous member's question about data and trends, there are absolute trends and there is an absolutely concerted and organized opposition to women's rights. We have to be as organized, concerted and strategic as those who are opposing us. I think we have to do that in a number of different ways.

To dial back to the start of your question related to democracy and authoritarianism, and maybe to the previous member's question, one of the key indices that we have to look at is the repression and the silencing of voices. The voices of women in civil society tend to be the first to be silenced.

We're seeing what some have called an epidemic of coups around the world. Often, they are military takeovers of government and again...deep forms of suppression. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but whereas we'd seen a handful in the previous 20 or 30 years, we're now seeing three or four times the number of coups in countries. We're seeing really dramatic declines on those fronts.

We're also seeing very intentional attacks on gender equality by countries that are working together—Russia and China in particular. They're doing this at institutional levels. At the United Nations, the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe and the African Union, for example, we're seeing countries deliberately and often subtly try to roll back gains that we've achieved. A colleague of mine said that we used to be pushing a boulder up the hill, but now we're just trying to keep the boulder in place.

For things like the rights of civil society and for women activists to address the forums directly—to hear from them, as opposed to just through government representatives—or recognizing the role of civil society in partnering with government, we're getting subtle rollback on these at an institutional level. The networks that you mentioned are exceptionally important so that we can identify these tactics, anticipate them and work against them.

That happens also at an individual level. You referenced that the pandemic has really been exacerbating these problems. First of all, as you all know very well, people couldn't meet in person. They had to take a lot of their work online. That created massive opportunities for state surveillance of human rights activists and organizers. Again, we need to think about networks and being able to provide security for people differently.

I really commend the committee and the work of committees in doing things like recommending a dedicated stream for human rights defenders, which, as you know, translated into very specific action. We're really proud that we have that and we want to keep growing that.

As we mentioned, there are very specific needs that we understand by listening to activists. Many human rights defenders and women peacebuilders say they're not seeking permanent status. They need to be able to escape while they manage the risks and then their ultimate goal, of course, is to go back. That's not their barrier to begin with.

As I mentioned, some people say that they don't want to go to a place where there's a concentration of people from their own country because they have to lay low, so it exposes them to different risks. They might have different needs for supports.

We have to be collecting gender disaggregated data on all of these applications and resettlements to make sure that women and men equally understand the opportunities that face them. The 250 number, of course, includes family members, so that adds up very quickly.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

On that note of disaggregated data, we'll conclude this round and continue on.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank all three of you for being with us today for this important study.

I will go relatively quickly. I was the Deputy Chair of the Special Committee on Afghanistan, so I will start with the situation in that country.

Many Canadian NGOs came to see me, often privately, to tell me that the Canadian Criminal Code was preventing them from doing their work in Afghanistan. The United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2615, but Canada never followed. In July, everyone said they agreed, including Minister Joly and Minister Sajjan. In September, we were told that changes were coming.

To date, Ms. O’Neill, have you seen a change in the Canadian Criminal Code pertaining to NGOs?

[Jacqueline O'Neill]

No.

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

Do you want a change?