Mr. Speaker, I would remind my colleague that this is International Women's Week and that this week we all had the opportunity to meet a number of Afghan female parliamentarians who were here in the House. That was a great privilege for all of us.
I also would remind her of some of Canada's international efforts as they relate to women. Canada is addressing the needs of Afghan women by supporting projects that improve the protection of women's rights, the participation of women in political life, which we saw this week, and women's access to the labour market, health services and education.
We have seen many changes in Afghanistan in six years. Six years ago, only 700,000 children went to school, all of them boys. Women did not participate in political life and were not represented in government. Today, however, close to six million children are attending school, one-third of them girls. More than 6.5 million Afghans, 43% of them women, voted in the parliamentary and provincial council elections and 27% of the members of the national assembly are women.
I call that real progress for women but the Bloc position on extending the security for those we are standing beside in Afghanistan is to simply leave now. I am wondering how she squares that with the idea of protecting vulnerable women?