Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on March 10th, 2023

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm not sure if this is a point of order or a point of privilege, but one of the things that's interesting about our committee and that's different from other committees is that we have not passed a motion that allows each party's whip staff to gain access to the digital binders, so I'm just wondering if we can get the consent of our committee to allow our whip staff to have access to the digital binders.

I have a motion, if we want to go in that direction. I move:

That the clerk of the committee be authorized to grant access to the committee's digital binder to the offices of the whips of each recognized party.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you for that.

Did we receive notice of this?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Ariane Gagné-Frégeau]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

We did not receive notice of this, so please give notice—unless the committee gives leave for this to be voted on right now.

Is that correct?

[The Clerk]

You can have unanimous consent to vote on it now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Is there unanimous consent for this?

There isn't in the room.

What's the procedure here?

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

If there's no unanimous consent, I'll move the motion at a later date.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Mr. Viersen.

I encourage the members to speak with each other, given that there's not unanimous consent.

As you mentioned, Mr. Viersen, this is a committee that operates differently with unanimous consent. We are going to have a conversation around that if possible.

Let us now suspend for a moment while we get ready for the second panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

We'll resume.

We're going, now, into our second panel. I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here in person and by Zoom.

We have, from Amnesty International Canada, Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general; from Oxfam Canada, Lauren Ravon, executive director, via Zoom; and also Léa Pelletier-Marcotte from Oxfam-Québec, policy analyst.

We'll have five minutes for introductory remarks from each of the two organizations. We'll start with Amnesty for five minutes, please.

[Ketty Nivyabandi, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to appear before the subcommittee.

I would like to start by noting how timely your study is. Decades of progress and hard-earned wins for women’s rights are under attack across the globe, and it really feels like we are swimming against the tide. I know that this committee has heard extensively on the state of women’s rights in Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, so I will focus my remarks on brief updates and recommendations for action.

First, in Saudi Arabia, you may recall that the Personal Status Law, which was passed just a year ago and was framed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a step towards progress and equality, has just marked a year now. In reality, although the law did introduce some positive reforms such as setting a minimum age for marriage, for instance, it really has codified some of the informal and very problematic practices of the male guardianship system. The law fails to protect women from domestic violence, and it entrenches a system of gender-based discrimination in marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance.

It is therefore key for the Government of Canada to press Saudi authorities to act on their CEDAW commitments, which they ratified in 2000, and to end the male guardianship system in full.

Also crucial is ending the imposition of travel bans against women human rights defenders and releasing the women who are unjustly imprisoned for their peaceful expression in support of women’s rights. This would include the release of women’s rights activist, Salma al-Shehab, who was sentenced last year to 34 years in prison based on tweets in support of human and women’s rights.

Canada, in partnership with its G7 allies, can and must sustain international pressure on the Saudi authorities to respect women’s rights and freedoms.

In Iran, the penal code, as you know, enables security and administrative bodies to arbitrarily arrest, detain and punish women. To put this in real terms, the punishment for women’s acts that are deemed offensive to public decency includes 10 days to two months of imprisonment or 74 lashes under article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code.

Canada must condemn these laws and regulations that deny women access to public institutions, and here I mean hospitals, schools, government offices and airports, if they do not cover their hair, as well as the ongoing surveillance and harassment to implement the forced veiling laws. Also critical are independent investigations of the torture and ill treatment of Iranian women human rights defenders.

Canada should not be deceived by claims of disbanding the morality police, but instead call for immediate transformative change that will transition Iran to a political and legal system that respects women’s basic human rights.

In Afghanistan, as you know, the situation is disastrous. In December of last year alone, women were banned from attending university and from employment by local and foreign NGOs. These rules followed a ban on women entering parks and gyms, attending secondary schools and participating in sports.

The Taliban have decimated the system of protection and support for those who are fleeing domestic violence. They have detained women and girls on minor violations, and we are now seeing a surge in the rates of child, early and forced marriage. Last November, three prominent women human rights defenders were arrested with their colleagues for their peaceful activism.

Canada must call not only for the Taliban to urgently lift their restrictions on women and girls but also for an end to their crackdown on anyone who dares to protest these constraints. Again, sustained international pressure is the only hope to reverse the stifling ban on human rights and women's rights.

Mr. Chair, as tragic as the situation in these three countries is, I wish to note that the rise of attacks on women and gender rights is global, and I encourage you to investigate these trends as well as situations in other countries. Online violence and the spread of transnational anti-feminist and anti-gender narratives are at an alarming high, with devastating impacts on women, particularly here in Canada as well.

Last, I will just highlight the need to support women human rights defenders in peril, particularly when they arrive on Canadian soil, because existing systems are inadequate, and we need practical solutions to support them.

I’ll stop here now, and I'll be happy to expand on these further in the question period.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Nivyabandi, for that.

Now we're going to continue to Oxfam.

Ms. Ravon, you have the floor for five minutes.

Please, go ahead.

[Lauren Ravon, Executive Director, Oxfam Canada]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for inviting us at Oxfam to appear before the subcommittee. It's fantastic to be appearing with Ketty and the analysis of amnesty.

My name is Lauren Ravon. I'm the executive director of Oxfam Canada. I'm here with my colleague, Léa Pelletier-Marcotte, from Oxfam-Québec.

We are both joining you, unfortunately, virtually from the traditional territory of the Mohawk peoples and are grateful to our host nation for the privilege of living on their lands.

As I speak to you today, we know the world is experiencing a time of crisis. Extreme inequality, climate change and unprecedented food and energy price inflation, which have all been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, are creating this perfect storm for the most vulnerable people around the world, the majority of whom are women and girls.

According to the UN, 339 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, which is the largest number in history, and acute food insecurity is escalating, with 45 million people at risk of starvation.

All of these crises we're facing have profound implications for women, from restricting their access to sexual and reproductive health services, to exacerbating gender-based violence and increasing their unpaid care work. The progress we've made to achieve gender equality has been set back by generations. It's now estimated that it will take close to 300 years to close the global gender gap.

For example, in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and other external actors have been fuelling armed conflict for close to eight years now, women's rights have faced setback after setback. We see that gender-based violence has increased by at least 66% since the beginning of the conflict, and we know that physical and emotional abuse and domestic violence are intrinsically linked to the deep economic crisis that households are experiencing, and that families are resorting to harmful coping strategies, like child marriage, to survive.

The conflict in Yemen has created one of the worst displacement crises in the world. One in three households that have been forced to flee is headed by a woman, which puts them at an increased risk of violence. Despite the critical role that Yemeni women have been playing to respond to the crisis, their political participation has declined sharply, especially since 2015. In fact, there are now no women in the cabinet of the recently formed Yemeni government, which is a sad first in over 20 years.

Women are also facing risks of arbitrary detention and forced disappearance. We know that many women activists and artists are currently jailed.

In the north of Yemen, women are required by the authorities to be accompanied by a male guardian when travelling. This restriction primarily targets female humanitarian workers, including our Oxfam colleagues and our colleagues in the Yemeni organizations we work with. This not only hampers our ability to deliver life-saving humanitarian aid, but it actually threatens the very existence of many women-led organizations in the country.

Pressure on Yemeni authorities and regional actors by donor countries like Canada can be effective. We saw this result in a relaxing of restrictions last year. However, it's crucial that external pressure be paired with increased support to local civil society, including women's rights organizations.

Looking beyond Yemen, as Ketty said, we're witnessing the rise of interconnected anti-rights movements around the world: anti-women, anti-trans, anti-abortion, anti-feminist, anti-democratic, anti-free press. Attacks on women's rights defenders and LGBTQ activists are on the rises around the world. Women politicians and journalists are being harassed, threatened and attacked both in person and online.

This violence and intimidation is clearly a form of backlash against women's rights. It's intended to silence women and gender-diverse people and keep them from holding positions of power. This is not only a threat to women's rights. It's also a threat to democracy and to all of our freedom.

I just want to end by sharing five of Oxfam's recommendations for the committee's consideration.

First, the government should finally launch Canada's feminist foreign policy, speak up for women's rights in multilateral spaces and use diplomatic channels to protect women's rights and women human rights' defenders.

Second, Canada should increase humanitarian aid to meet record needs, building up to $1.8 billion of new and additional funding by 2025, starting with a $600 million increase in international assistance in this upcoming budget.

Third, Global Affairs Canada should launch the second phase of the women's voice and leadership program. In countries like Yemen, Canada should provide women-led organizations with flexible humanitarian funding and invest in strengthening their capacity to engage in peacebuilding and conflict resolution.

Fourth, Canada should implement a refugee protection and resettlement system that is based on equity and fair access for all and that would allow more people to seek safety in Canada more quickly, no matter where they are coming from.

Finally, as was discussed in the previous session, it should establish an emergency evacuation program and an accelerated visa process for human rights defenders and prioritize those facing heightened risk, including women activists, journalists and LGBTQ defenders.

I'm looking forward to questions. Thank you for the opportunity to appear on behalf of Oxfam.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Ravon.

We are now going to go into our first round.

Mr. Aboultaif, go ahead for five minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thanks to the witnesses for appearing today.

If I may call you Ketty, there are chemical attacks on girls at schools in Iran that are happening as we speak. How do you read this? Do you have any details to share with us on how widespread these are? What's behind them? Is there any hope that these are going to stop?

[Ketty Nivyabandi]

I can't share the details now. All our analysis around this is based on first-hand research that we conduct and, therefore, we first go on the ground as much as possible or collect first-hand accounts before we can make any pronouncement so that it will be really factual. I would be happy to report back to the committee on these recent actions.

What I would note, though, is that this is really part of a war on women and girls in Iran overall. We have seen various forms of attacks that are targeted at silencing women and girls, particularly at this moment when we're seeing unprecedented protests and challenge of the Iranian authorities. I think it's important to read that as part of that desire to crush any dissent at a moment when the Iranian authorities feel very vulnerable.

I will close here.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I know we have policies we use to enhance and improve the conditions, the livelihoods and the human rights of women, but it seems as though the challenge we have here is that we're dealing with different agendas on different fronts.

For example, what works for Iran and Afghanistan might not work for Saudi Arabia and Yemen. What works for any part of the world might not work in another part. Therefore, we are in need of more creative ways to look into different areas so that we are most effective rather than having a broad policy of “one size fits all”.

How do you see Canada's readiness in leading the way in at least some areas to make the needed improvements, specifically now in Iran, which, in my opinion, should be number one in terms of attention, and then in Afghanistan and other places?

[Ketty Nivyabandi]

That's a broad question. It's very much both a foreign policy question and also a tactical question as well.

I will say that, first and foremost, you are right in the sense that you can't apply the same strategy overall, but you do have to apply the same values and standards across the board. That needs to be really clarified. When we speak up on human rights in Iran, we must also do so wherever else these rights are at risk.

I think it requires considerable investment in really identifying strategies that work for each country, working with civil society, working with defenders who are on the ground and who understand the challenges in their countries better than anyone else does, and devising strategies that are informed rather than employing the same tactic across the board.

It's clear from what we're seeing around the world that these attacks are unique. They are also sophisticated. They are becoming more and more professional, and they need Canada and other countries that are standing up for human rights to do that with as much capacity as possible as well.

I hope that assists.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The question again is how ready we are in Canada to take leadership, if not on all fronts then at least on some initiatives, to be able to be effective and to make a difference.

[Ketty Nivyabandi]

I think Canada has the potential to do that. It's a question of political will as well, but the potential is there and the leadership is needed certainly. There's a global vacuum in leadership on human rights, and there's a role that Canada can play.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

In your message to the Canadian government, was there a specific message on the leadership? What are you doing to lobby further and to push the government—or actually to direct the government—into probably a better approach that is more effective?

[Ketty Nivyabandi]

It's the work that we do daily. We advise the Canadian government to take strategic approaches. I would add to this that the world craves a Canada that is bolder on human rights, more articulate, not afraid and able to uphold the rights of all across the globe. I think I'd like to emphasize that. If we're going to be credible on human rights, we have to do so across all countries and not necessarily prioritize some over others, or some human rights crises over others.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you for that.

Now we are going to continue to our next round.

Mr. Sidhu, you have five minutes.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for joining us here today to share your insights. It was International Women's Day a couple of days ago, so thank you for your work and your inspiration. I know my daughters are very inspired by the work you guys do.

My question to you is this. We heard in your opening remarks, Secretary General, about the importance of protecting human rights defenders and the need to do more. We heard from Ms. Ravon as well. She mentioned maybe expediting visa processing.

Secretary General Nivyabandi, do you have any thoughts in terms of what more we can do, or any further insights you can provide on what we can do?

[Ketty Nivyabandi]

Absolutely.

Yes, women human rights defenders, when they are risking their lives to protect human rights, justice or freedoms, find themselves in incredible danger. These things often happen within 24 hours or 48 hours. I'll give you the case of a human rights defender in Nicaragua just a couple of weeks ago when over 200 Nicaraguans were stripped of their citizenship, and we needed to find a solution for her urgently. We needed to get her out of the country, and we needed the support of a country to do that.

Here is where I think Canada falls short, and there's a lot of opportunity. First and foremost, we absolutely need an emergency visa system that is specifically designed for human rights defenders at risk. Right now, there's a gap in our immigration system. You can apply for a tourist visa or you can come as part of a refugee stream, but if you're in the country and need to leave, you will be denied a visa precisely because you are considered to be at risk of not returning to the country. You're penalized. Human rights defenders are penalized for their status.

We do need a stream for that. Some countries, particularly in Europe, have models that I think Canada can follow, including Ireland. That's the first thing.

Also, once they get here, they need support. We need to be able to fund a program for activists at risk that enables them to have the assistance. It could be in the form of fellowships or programs for activists at risk here in Canada that support them, so they're able to continue their work while they're temporarily relocated.

Lastly, I would say that we need a “Voices at Risk” guidelines equivalent for those who have left their countries and are here in exile. They're exiled in Canada. The “Voices at Risk” are very explicit for people who are outside, but once they've relocated and they've made it onto Canadian soil, these women human rights defenders find themselves lost in the system. We need clear guidelines to support them.