Foreign Affairs committee  Quickly on that point, I don't know Mrs. Joya personally, but I do think that the women in Parliament do face more challenges and that there is a need to further support them. There is a lot of intimidation, a lot of harassment for all of them to do their jobs. There does need to

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. I'll finish up quickly. On the question of whether the time is right for a peace process, it was fairly clear from the interviews that a lot of different initiatives are going on but they're disconnected. In order to have a more coordinated or formalized effort, there

Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of the question on how grassroots peacebuilding works with higher-level diplomacy, what I found in the interviews I had with international diplomats, as well as Afghan organizations and international organizations working on these issues in Afghanistan, is that most peop

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll answer in English. First of all, in terms of how the people I spoke to perceived Canada's assistance, the Afghans I spoke to work in civil society organizations or in non-governmental organizations. So these are people who work within the aid sector in Afghanistan, who do a

Foreign Affairs committee  In relation to the question about how you address impunity inside the Karzai government, there are a couple of opportunities coming up in the near future that could at least address it in a small measure. One is that there's a recommendation in the Afghanistan Compact, as it is

Foreign Affairs committee  Good afternoon. My name is Surendrini Wijeyaratne. I am a Peace and Conflict Policy Analyst with the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. I am also a fellow of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation. I wish to thank you for the opportunity you are giving me today to