Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to present a petition today that is really important for women's rights.
The petitioners are particularly concerned with and focused on the gender apartheid of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is depriving women and girls of fundamental rights. Girls are denied the right to learn and to go to school; these are full violations of international law under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and against the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
I know I am only to summarize petitions. This one is lengthy, and I will summarize it as follows.
The petitioners ask the Government of Canada to formally and publicly declare Canada's support to include gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and international law, to advocate for the CEDAW framework, to take on gender apartheid and make specific changes in our policies to reach out to support Afghan women and girls, to collaborate with other UN member states, to sanction senior Taliban officials under Canada's Magnitsky laws and to make every possible effort to protect our sisters in Afghanistan from a cruel, misogynistic, illegal regime.
Please, I urge the government to consider this petition.