Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, it's fully operational. Margot Wallstrom is the special representative of the Secretary-General. She's been on the ground in the DRC.That's fully in place.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't think so. I think the questions have given me a lot of opportunity to stress the points I made in my opening remarks. I should simply say that I'm really delighted that you are looking at this issue. I think the whole question of the advancement and protection of women

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, that speaks about the international and national media and the choices they make in their reporting. Frankly, as an international NGO, essentially, that works on the ground, we see to a large extent the poverty of international reporting from the ground up. The media are ex

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  --even in countries that otherwise deserve and receive a tremendous amount of western-based donor assistance.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Actually, I had that in my original text. I didn't want to put you to sleep by reading for too long, so I skipped the part in my text that would have answered your question.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Security Council enacted two subsequent resolutions. In one of these resolutions, it established--it's a Security Council-based post, and therefore quite potent--a special representative of the Secretary-General on sexual violence in conflict and a group of rule-of-law expert

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think a lot of people are asking themselves that question, the question of whether we have rushed into the exporting of democracy in a fashion that, in my view, was maybe just a little too focused on the holding of elections. There's a lot more to democracy than a series of per

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much. On your first question, the victimization of boys in particular in Afghanistan was well known to agencies working on the ground for a long time--UNICEF, for instance--but it had not penetrated mass media. It just started to surface in recent years, and it's

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That is what I believe. Finally, our approach to women in armed conflict has never really taken into account, because they do not fit the stereotypes, women combatants, women who become involved in the conflict, despite their limited means. Some of those women are in the streets

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much. Like you, I think the real challenge is developing programs. We can hardly expect to show up with bags full of money ready to be handed out to women, even though that seems to be the case in other situations, with money being handed over to warlords and even

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It comes back to what I said earlier. A country's foreign aid policy is often a reflection of its own experiences and values. Think back to when the government decided to start sending family benefit cheques directly to mothers instead of fathers. It was a pretty radical idea at

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. I used the example of the court challenges program in large part because I believe that it's one of the rare examples--but in a sense should be a classic one--of a real form of empowerment, not a paternalistic one. Women very much took the lead, and, as you know, many

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Should I answer the questions in turn, or take all the questions?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much. First let me stress again how much I agree with the necessity to focus on the empowerment of women and not just the victimization of women. I think that side of UN resolution 1325 has in some cases been overemphasized. On the issue of empowerment, I think w

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much indeed. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you about sexual violence in conflict zones and about the role that Canada can play to minimize its devastating consequences, particularly its impact on women and children. The organization that I head, Internati