Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 17th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number four of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is meeting for a briefing on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members may participate in person or remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and can select the desired channel. This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I would now like to welcome the witnesses.

As an individual, we have Ms. Rosemary Esene, by video conference. We also have Mark von Riedemann, director for public affairs and religious freedom, by video conference, and Kinga Schierstaedt, head of section for Nigeria, by video conference. From the Association of Nigerians in Nanaimo, we have with us Mohammed Usman, president. From the Center for Strategic and International Studies, we have Oge Onubogu, director and senior fellow, Africa program, by video conference. From Religious Freedom Institute, we have with us Reverend Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett, senior fellow.

I would like to give every one of you a period of five minutes for an opening statement.

I will start with Ms. Rosemary Esene.

Welcome. The floor is yours.

[Rosemary Esene, As an Individual]

Good morning, everybody.

I stand before you today with a heavy heart, carrying the pain of a tragedy that transcends borders, a tragedy that has left scars on my community in Nigeria and on my soul. On April 24, 2018, my dear friend, Reverend Father Joseph Gor, along with 15 others, were brutally murdered in the Gwer West local government area of Benue state, Nigeria, by armed Fulani men.

Prior to the murder of my dear friend, he had posted on his official Facebook page, urging the public and Nigerians to assist them, as there were heavily armed Fulani men patrolling the vicinity and were threatening their lives. Unfortunately, that call fell on deaf ears as, on April 24, he was murdered, together with his fellow priest and 14 lay faithfuls, including women and children.

Father Gor was not only a man of peace. He was a servant of God, a dedicated advocate for his community and my dear friend. He was not just a priest. He was a protector of the weak, a beacon of hope for those who literally had no voice. His murder, along with the senseless killing of his fellow citizens, is a tragedy that should have never occurred, yet it is part of a wider pattern of violence that has plagued central Nigeria for years.

This violence, fuelled by ethnic and religious conflict, has destroyed families, displaced thousands and torn apart communities. It is not just the loss of life that weighs heavily on my heart. It's the ongoing cycle of violence, impunity and fear that continues to haunt my people. These killings are not isolated incidents. They're part of a broader crisis that demands international attention, action and solidarity.

As I stand before you today, I ask you for your support in raising awareness about the crisis in Nigeria, especially in Benue state. We cannot allow the bloodshed to continue without speaking out. We cannot allow the memory of Reverend Father Gor and others who were taken from us to fade into silence. They were fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children—members of a community whose only crime was to seek peace, justice and the right to live without fear of violence and to worship without being harassed or killed.

To my Canadian friends, I urge you to stand with the people of Nigeria in this dark moment. Canada has long been a champion of human rights, democracy and protection of the innocent. Now, more than ever, we need your support in calling for justice for the victims of these horrific attacks. We need your voice in condemning the ongoing violence and pressuring the Nigerian government to take meaningful actions to end the conflict and to hold those responsible accountable.

Beyond that, we also need your help in sending a message of solidarity to the people of Nigeria. We need to remind them that they are not alone. The international community stands with them in their struggle for peace, justice and the right of freedom of association.

For Father Gor and the 15 others who were murdered in April 2018, they're not just victims of senseless violence; they were symbols of the hope that still exist in the hearts of Nigerians. Their legacy is one of courage, compassion and resilience. I ask you to honour their memory by not allowing their deaths to be in vain. Let us work together to ensure that justice prevails and that peace, not violence, defines the future of our homeland.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you. The time was respected.

Now I invite Ms. Kinga Schierstaedt, the head of the Section for Nigeria. Madam, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Kinga Schierstaedt, Head of Section for Nigeria, Aid to the Church in Need]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about Nigeria.

When discussing religiously motivated violence, we see three groups: those who suffer, those who comment and those who work with victims. ACN belongs to the latter.

Through the local church, we support projects and receive first-hand information from bishops, priests and sisters all over the country. Today, we speak for the church in Nigeria, both in the north, where Christians face severe discrimination, as well as in the northeast and middle belt, where Christians suffer extreme persecution.

I will address discrimination first.

Of the 36 states in Nigeria, 12 in the north operate under sharia law. In states like Sokoto, Zamfara and Katsina, discrimination is extreme. A Muslim man, for instance, can marry a Christian woman, but not vice versa. Christians accused of blasphemy face long detentions, and civil service jobs are largely closed to Christians unless they convert. As a bishop told me recently, “We may not be shot in the streets, but the crushing pressure and relentless discrimination are enough to break many.” This is what many call systematic discrimination.

Second is persecution. In Nigeria, it's layered: religious, ethnic, social and historical. Some bishops describe the violence as genocidal. Churches are destroyed, and Christians are killed for their faith.

What is clear, however, is that the violence cannot be reduced to a single narrative. For example, an overarching issue is banditry. In particular, kidnapping is a business affecting Muslims and Christians alike. Religious leaders are a prime target, not necessarily for their faith but because they command higher ransom payments.

Having said this, however, in the middle belt, especially Benue state, the growing violent persecution is alarming. Farming communities are under attack, entire villages are destroyed, families are killed and millions are displaced. Of Benue's five million people, about two million live in IDP camps. The attackers are often nomadic Fulani tribes. The reasons are complex: land and water disputes, pre-existing ethnic tensions, intercommunal violence and stress from climate change.

What's most alarming is the growing religious component and radicalization. Groups like al Qaeda and ISIS do not create new conflicts, but they intensify them, injecting extremist ideology, funding and tactics. For instance, our partners report attackers shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they burn homes and kill families.

Impunity worsens the crisis. Perpetrators rarely face justice, and those on the ground tell us the same thing: The government is not doing enough to stop systematic discrimination or to end the killings.

ACN supports the Catholic Church nationwide, but needs differ. In Maiduguri, the church provides trauma healing for victims of Boko Haram to break this spiral of violence. In the middle belt, where survival is the priority, our help focuses on emergency relief and pastoral care, just trying to bring a little hope where all seems lost.

This is Nigeria today, a nation where discrimination and violence intersect, where faith communities struggle to survive and where silence—national and international—remains deafening.

My colleague Mark von Riedemann, who is in charge of advocacy and the religious freedom report, will mention one possible way forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Are you finished, Madam?

[Kinga Schierstaedt]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Okay. Thank you.

Now I would like to invite Mr. Mohammed Usman, president, Association Of Nigerians in Nanaimo.

You have the floor for five minutes. Welcome, sir.

[Mohammed Usman, President, Association Of Nigerians in Nanaimo]

Thank you, Chair and honourable members of the subcommittee, for inviting me to speak today.

My name is Mohammed Usman, president of the Association of Nigerians in Nanaimo. Our association includes Nigerians from diverse faiths and ethnic backgrounds. Many of our members have been directly affected, through family or personal experiences, by the ongoing violence in Nigeria.

I appreciate the committee's commitment to examining the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. The issue has gone on for far too long and has devastated countless families and communities.

The focus of today's briefing is the ongoing persecution of Christians who have been targeted for their faith, killed in the tens of thousands, displaced from their homes and subjected to the destruction of their churches and places of worship. These experiences are real, well documented and deeply painful, both for survivors and for diaspora families who have loved ones back home.

While Christians face severe and targeted attacks, it is important to recognize that they are not the only victims of Nigeria's insecurity. Across the country, ethnic minority groups in the middle belt, such as the Tiv, the Berom, the Idoma—which is the one I belong to—and the Adara, have endured repeated attacks. Farmers, pastoralists, women and children are caught in cycles of kidnapping, extortion and displacement. Muslim communities have been massacred by Boko Haram and other extremists. This broader context does not take away from the persecution of Christians, but it helps explain the scale and complexity of the crisis.

The violence is driven by multiple overlapping factors, including but not limited to governance failures and corruption, poverty and economic inequality, ethnic rivalries, climate-related land pressures that pit nomad Fulani herders—mostly Muslims—against farming communities made up of both Christians and Muslims, organized crime feeding off of weak institutions and terrorism. At its inception in 2002, Boko Haram declared Nigeria an apostate entity and was against the Nigerian state and everyone associated with it, not against any particular religion.

Christian communities, especially in Plateau and Kaduna states, have experienced the burning of churches and destruction of whole villages, mass displacement into overcrowded camps, loss of family members, deep trauma among women and children and fear that limits worship, education and daily life.

Similarly, Muslim families in Borno and Yobe live under constant threat from extremist attacks. Middle belt ethnic groups face repeated raids. Schools, mosques, markets, farms, government institutions, police stations, army bases and even U.S. buildings have been burned and destroyed. While Christians are often uniquely targeted in certain regions, the violence spares no religion and no ethnicity.

The government response has evolved over time with different approaches. These steps show little progress, but the challenges remain immense.

Our association's recommendations for Canada are as follows: strengthen diplomatic engagement by encouraging Nigeria to ensure equal protection for all at-risk communities, especially Christian minorities; increase humanitarian support for NGOs assisting displaced Christians and other victims, particularly women, children and trauma survivors; help trace terrorist financing by supporting Nigeria's efforts to identify sponsors and financiers of Boko Haram and related groups; advance accountability by encouraging investigations and prosecutions of perpetrators of mass violence, regardless of their ethnicity or religion; invest in peacebuilding and early warning systems by supporting interfaith peace programs and community-level conflict prevention; listen to civil society's voices by engaging survivors, local leaders and diaspora communities; and support anti-corruption initiatives to help strengthen the independence and capacity of Nigeria's anti-corruption institutions.

The persecution of Christians in Nigeria is a serious and urgent human rights concern. I urge us all, though, not to oversimplify a very complex socio-political situation. Muslims, Christians and traditionalists are suffering under the same climate of insecurity. By addressing the persecution of Christians within this broader context, Canada can help promote justice, peace and human dignity for all affected Nigerians.

Thank you so much for your time and commitment to this.

I'll be open to taking questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Usman. The time was well respected, so thank you.

Now, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, I would like to invite Ms. Oge Onubogu, director and senior fellow, Africa program, to speak.

Welcome. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Oge Onubogu, Director and Senior Fellow, Africa Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies]

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone.

I am honoured to share my views with you on this important briefing. The CSIS does not take policy positions, so the views represented in this testimony are my own, not those of my employer.

In Nigeria today, ethnicity, religion and language—not nationality—remain the benchmarks of identity for Nigeria's highly diverse population. While Nigeria has witnessed repeated ethnic and religious clashes over the years, its ethnically and religiously diverse population is not the problem or the cause of these conflicts.

According to a 2021 Afrobarometer survey, nine in 10 Nigerians expressed willingness to live with people from different ethnicities and religions. This survey also noted lower levels of trust among citizens, with 92% stating they must be careful when dealing with others, indicating that while there is a sense of unity among Nigerians, trust issues persist, affecting social interactions.

It is important to understand the nature of violence in Nigeria and its causes, which extend beyond the religious or ethnic overtones that appear to motivate that animosity. A narrow narrative that seeks to reduce Nigeria's security situation to a single story of widespread persecution and the mass slaughter of Christians in Nigeria misses other important considerations and misinterprets the complexity of violence and interfaith relations in the country. In actuality, religious and ethnic violence in Nigeria is a symptom, and the hate speech and conspiracy theories that often drive it are throwing fuel on a fire long ignited by Nigerians' frustrations over what are essentially failures of governance.

Nigeria is facing different but overlapping security crises. Literally every corner of the country is affected by some form of violence and crime. Nigeria's security threats are multi-faceted and overlapping, stemming from, among other things, religious extremism, banditry, resource competition, communal land disputes and separatist agitation. They also tend to be enmeshed in history, entangled in poverty and exacerbated by political contestation.

The interplay between religion and politics in Nigeria is deep and complex. Nigerian political leaders romanticize Nigeria's unity but do little to cultivate it. On the contrary, they often stoke ethnic and religious tensions in election campaigns, seemingly to distract from their failure to deliver for the people they are supposed to serve. The divisive political climate of Nigeria's 2023 elections illustrated this tendency. As Nigeria approaches yet another contentious election campaign period, religion will remain a significant factor in Nigeria's 2027 elections, influencing candidate selection, voter behaviour and campaign strategies, just as we saw in 2023.

There is a widespread acknowledgement by all Nigerians that the security situation in Nigeria has gotten worse over the years. Narratives that focus solely on the killings of Christians tend to ignore the reality that religion is often a secondary factor in Nigeria's internal violence, rather than its main driver. While there have certainly been many incidents in recent years in which religious groups and places of worship were targeted for atrocities, data suggests that killings motivated explicitly by religious extremism or intolerance account for only a part of overall fatalities across the country.

In 2022, a study by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, ACLED, found that from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022, amid an overall rise in attacks on civilians, “violence in which Christians have been specifically targeted in relation to their religious identity accounts for only 5% of reported civilian targeting events.” In recent years, most victims of violence in the middle belt have been Christians in farming villages from various ethnic groups. Most are presumed to have been killed by herders and militia, who are predominately Muslim, but they were not killed expressly because of their faith.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Can you please wrap it up?

The time is over, but I will give you a few seconds to finish.

[Oge Onubogu]

Thank you very much.

Let's go back to the root causes here and what the international community can do in this regard.

Without interfering in internal politics, the international community can engage deeply and broadly with communities across Nigeria to better understand the nuances driving the conflicts in the country. While it is never wise to dismiss religion as a cause of conflict, it is unproductive to label a conflict as solely driven by religion or to single out just one group when there are so many other factors at play.

Clearly, a fresh approach is needed for both Nigeria and the international community. The international community should embrace Nigeria as an aspiring democracy and strategic partner in Africa. The Nigerian government, on the other hand, must make accountability of perpetrators central to its response. The Nigerian people need accountability and this accountability needs to be prioritized.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Now, I would like to invite, from the Religious Freedom Institute, Dr. Andrew Bennett.

Welcome, Dr. Bennett. You have the floor for five minutes.

[The Reverend Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett, Senior Fellow, Religious Freedom Institute]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, I'm grateful for the opportunity.

In view of all the testimony that's already been given, I'll shorten my comments to what has not been covered by my previous colleagues.

Nigeria is very clearly a country in social crisis. The Nigerian human rights organization, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, has estimated that between 2009 and 2023 at least 52,000 Christians have been killed, 18,500 have been abducted and are likely dead, and more than 20,000 churches and Christian schools have been attacked. Since 2023, this persecution has continued unabated.

Between January and August of this year, a further estimated 7,000 Christians have been massacred. Militias have burned homes and crops, pushed out people from their territory to seize land and forcibly imposed Islam in some of these regions.

However, this is not simply about land disputes and scarce resources. Sometimes when we sit in committees and subcommittees like this, we hear big numbers of people who are suffering grave human rights atrocities. I want to remind all of us here that each one of these persons was a unique, irreplaceable human being, members of families, with souls, so these are horrific numbers given in that light and with that perspective.

Muslims also face persecution, as you've already heard. For example, the various factions of the Boko Haram insurgency are dyed-in-the-wool jihadists waging what they view as a holy war. However, some of these jihadists have killed Muslim civilians alongside Christians. Indeed, Boko Haram's Islamist ideology makes virtually no distinction between the two.

Christians are being targeted in large part through mass killings by the Fulani militias. Again, the reasons why are complex. The persecution has been under way in central Nigeria since March 2010, but has increased exponentially and has spread to other parts of the country.

Communities are chosen for targeting by the jihadists. Overall, 2.7 Christians were killed for every Muslim killed in the data period of 2019-23, and I'm referencing a study by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, which was a groundbreaking study trying to understand the nature of the persecution.

However, again, Muslims are also terribly affected by the violence, but I think we need to note the issue of proportionality where Christians are typically more targeted.

What about the Nigerian authorities in all of this? As Nigeria expert James Barnett of the Hudson Institute has argued, Nigeria is experiencing multiple distinct yet overlapping conflicts. Some but not all of these conflicts are religious in nature. The complexity of the situation has highlighted the inability of Nigerian authorities to tackle the many significant socio-religious and socio-political challenges that besiege the country.

Indeed, the insufficient action by successive governments and alleged complicity by elements in the security forces have allowed religious persecution to spread like a cancer, with militias increasingly targeting ethnic Hausa Muslim communities in the northwest.

No matter where these attacks happen, the army is often absent or fails to head off the attacks through effective intelligence and mobilization. The militias are largely able to operate with impunity. The Nigerian government and its armed forces seem incapable of addressing the situation decisively. I want to emphasize that it's a clear case of religious freedom being egregiously violated, not due to government restrictions on religion but rather due to civil authorities' inability to address the social hostilities that manifest as religious persecution.

Why is this horrific situation being ignored?

Firstly, Africa is largely ignored by western democracies and by western media. This is an endemic challenge; it's not just with regard to Nigeria and this situation.

Secondly, there is the downplaying of the role of religion in conflicts such as this. Many secular western elites, including foreign policy actors, have equivocated on the nature of the violence, downplaying or misrepresenting it by failing to recognize the important religious element of these attacks. This attitude was also present when ISIS swept across Iraq and Syria in the mid-2010s. The vast majority of those in the foreign policy community have little to no understanding of religion and how it defines not only social relations but also politics, culture and even economic activity in most of the world. Therefore, they're not able to address these situations as they present.

I've argued before that diplomats need to “get religion” if they're going to be effective in many regions of the globe in addressing the challenges that are there.

What can be done?

Global Affairs Canada can work through the International Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief to develop sustained multilateral policy and programming initiatives to tackle the persecution at its roots.

Global Affairs should reorient its approach to in-country programming by expanding its partnerships with reliable and experienced faith-based agencies that have the networks, sustained engagement and deep knowledge of a particular region. Examples could include Aid to the Church in Need, Christian Solidarity Worldwide or the Mennonite Central Committee.

Finally, Global Affairs Canada, through the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, should develop a mandatory program of training in religion and foreign relations for Canada-based and outbound diplomats, with targeted country-specific modules to better equip them with the knowledge required for engaging religious actors and issues. On the ground, we can do much, but we need to understand what is happening.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Reverend.

Thanks to all our witnesses.

Now I would like to open the floor for questions and answers. I would like to start with Mr. Majumdar.

You have the floor, sir, for seven minutes, please. Go ahead.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all who have testified and to all who have borne witness to the hundreds of thousands of stolen souls and stolen lives in this horrific conflict.

Dr. Bennett, I'll start with you. You mentioned that there have been many reasons why this particular conflict has not featured prominently in the international media or in our own national debate. Many of us represent Nigerian Christians in our communities and across Canada. Much of our foreign policy, if I might start at a macro level, has been secularized around the questions of the status of African democracy in different states or the singularity of special leadership that emerges and sometimes then disappears over time, and occasionally you'll see environmental plans and schemes, whether it's a solar plant here or there.

The subtext to all of it is a population and a people whose demography is radically changing over these last 15 to 20 years, and especially so in the last 10 years. The growth of Christian life in Africa has been a particularly interesting story, and a reality that I think many communities, particularly in the African north, are contending with in terms of fanatics who are resisting that. The second story is one of the African resources and African markets and how countries are at play between the western model and the Beijing model.

This conversation about religion and foreign policy is a difficult one. It's one that you've spent a lot of time reflecting on. Based on the realities of Christian life and Christian growth in Africa, but particularly in Nigeria, as we're here to talk about today, what's your reflection of the realities of this advent that policy-makers are missing and not capturing?

[Rev. Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I think the first thing is to recognize that religious actors are major players in the life of a country. Living here in Canada, we live in a highly secularized country. We're not used to engaging religious actors in the same way. We might consult a local pastor, a local bishop or a local imam or rabbi on a very particular issue, but in a country such as Nigeria, or in many of the countries of the world, religious actors are major players, as I said, not only in the cultural or religious life of the country but in the socio-economic and political life of the country. They have major influence.

The first thing is to recognize that there's a need to engage these players, but then also, for western diplomats, you have to acquire the language to do that engagement. That means learning what the most effective way is to engage religious actors. If you don't have the nimbleness of the language, then you can't do that in a very effective manner. You're not only doing a disservice to them by not engaging them as they should be engaged, but you're also not really helping your own interests as Canada, in this case, or a particular country, if you can't have those deep engagements and form those very deep networks that can help us to understand more clearly what the dynamics are in a given country. That's been an Achilles heel that we've had for many decades.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you for that. It's certainly a reality of how people live their lives day to day that often gets neglected.

In the context of Nigeria very specifically, as you note, nearly 18,000 churches have now now been destroyed across Nigeria: direct evidence of widespread violent action against Christians in that country specifically. How unprecedented is this level of destruction and violence against religious institutions in any country?

[Rev. Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

It's unprecedented. In my time as ambassador for religious freedom, which I began in 2013, I certainly remember widespread religious persecution—for example, the burning of churches or other places of worship, whether in Egypt or in Myanmar. However, I do not recall this scale of persecution.

When the Office of Religious Freedom was in existence, there was a very effective program in Nigeria that actually predated the Office of Religious Freedom. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade had a program working with different communities in Plateau state, in the central belt around Jos, trying to develop early warning systems whereby the communities could connect with one another when there would be an attack so that things didn't escalate. We've, therefore, had a presence in Nigeria before as Canadians with partners.

However, now I think the situation is so critical that it's a time for us to re-engage with partners bilaterally, multilaterally and through international institutions, and—as I mentioned—most effectively, I think, with those organizations that have a deep knowledge of what is happening on the ground. We need to work with them in ways that can begin to address some of the roots of this type of persecution because it is, indeed, unprecedented.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you very much.

Dr. Nmadu, I'll turn to you in the remaining minute and a half that I have.

Hundreds of thousands is a death-toll number that has formed over a decade. We know that this conflict has persisted across the region. In your mind, how has this issue been able to persist for so long in Nigeria?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Excuse me. We're waiting for your answer.

Mr. Majumdar, can you repeat that, please, or change it?

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Okay. In the absence of that, Mr. Chair, maybe I'll reclaim some of that lost time and follow up with Dr. Bennett with a third question. I'm sorry about the connection.

Dr. Bennett, you pioneered tools in how Canada and other states can support religious communities in crisis. In your opening remarks, you mentioned some very practical solutions. Could you expand a little further on what Global Affairs Canada and our country could be doing more meaningfully to stand with the persecuted Christians in Nigeria?

[Rev. Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

As I mentioned, I think we need to work more closely with faith-based organizations that are doing this work, and we have a number of them represented as witnesses today. However, I think also it's to be—if I can put it this way—sort of innovative in how we do programming and develop policy options by looking at best practices from our allies, including those allies that are more engaged, perhaps, in Nigeria than we are. The Commonwealth Secretariat is an underutilized body that can also be quite effective, given its deep presence there.

I just think we need to be a little bit more innovative in how we approach these types of situations—maybe by going to partners we haven't used in the past or have maybe underutilized in the past.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you.

Mark von Riedemann, I'll ask you this very quickly: How has the implementation of sharia law in 12 states across northern Nigeria contributed to this crisis?

[Mark von Riedemann, Director of Public Affairs and Religious Freedom, Aid to the Church in Need]

The challenge of sharia law is that it has been included in the penal code, which means that the principles of sharia are applied to all citizens equally in northern Nigeria. Obviously, there is the risk to both Muslims and Christians because both suffer under the harsh implementation, especially when it comes to questions of apostasy, questions of expression of faith and, let's say, the clear violation of religious freedom, which is absolutely not present in northern Nigeria.