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Results: 61 - 75 of 139
Taryn Russell
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Taryn Russell
2021-02-02 15:41
Sorry, interpretation.
I feel that her comments really highlight the complexities of implementing distance-based learning measures, particularly for families living in poverty and in crisis situations.
Save the Children has worked to employ innovative solutions to address many of these learning barriers, but it is vital that we get all children back into school as soon as it is safe to do so. We know the interventions that will be needed. These include things like financial support for the world's poorest families, catch-up classes for children who re-enter the formal education system, water sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools to make them COVID-19 safe, and national back-to-school communications campaigns to inform communities that it is safe to return to school, and especially those targeted at vulnerable groups, which I mentioned earlier, including girls, refugees and internally displaced children. Finally, it includes effective training for teachers to keep everyone safe during the pandemic.
The closure of schools and the increase in global poverty rates has also exacerbated another critical issue affecting children, that of gender-based violence. To give an example, in Uganda, despite some schools having reopened, more than 13 million children have remained out of school since the end of March last year, including 600,000 refugee children. In Nwoya District in northern Uganda, figures show that cases of both teenage pregnancies and child marriage doubled, and rates of child labour tripled between April and June last year while children were out of school. With reporting difficulties, the numbers are likely much higher.
Without urgent action, it's projected that over the next 10 years as many as 13 million additional girls may marry as a result of the pandemic, and we know that this will have immediate as well as lifelong impacts on them, including higher risks to disruptions of their education, life-threatening adolescent pregnancy and childbirth, malnutrition, mental health issues, and the inability to control their own future.
Arsema, a young Ethiopian girl, whose own child marriage was averted, thankfully, with support from a community safeguarding program, told us “I couldn’t be happier. Now I can study hard and become a doctor”. Every child has a right to plan for their own future in this way. What's so concerning is that the pandemic is already causing critical interruptions to GBV preventative interventions. This includes child protection and referral services for girls at risk of GBV, which is how girls like Arsema would have been identified and supported in their communities.
It's clearly a time when governments should be investing in children, their education and their safety, yet budgets are being hollowed out by a recession, and the diversion of public spending to health care and economic recovery, which are important. Most of the world's poorest countries, especially in Africa, entered the economic downturn with limited financial space. The international community will be needed to step up and take action to help fill this gap through international aid, but also debt relief measures and providing technical assistance and political support for issues like GBV and education.
In our prior testimony, we provided recommendations that Canada should scale up its humanitarian assistance, that Canada should prioritize urgently needed attention to these neglected areas like education and gender-based violence, and that Canada should support calls for a global ceasefire. These recommendations still stand, and I would just echo my colleague on the need for Canada to be championing an agenda for children reflecting their needs as well as their voices into fora both domestic and global when discussing COVID-19 response measures. Children may not be the most directly affected by the virus itself, but as our testimony shows, they're bearing a heavy load of the indirect impacts and need our support.
Thank you.
View Kerry Diotte Profile
CPC (AB)
Dr. Mirza, you talked about gender-based violence and gender-based issues. I'm wondering what the special challenges are in dealing with this when you have many societies that might not see genders as equal. For instance, some societies would ask why you should send a girl to school. What are the special challenges there, and what can be done about that?
Tanjina Mirza
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Tanjina Mirza
2021-02-02 17:24
That's a great question. Interestingly, I think people everywhere do want to send their children to school. There are barriers that remain for all children, but more so for girls.
Just raising awareness about the importance of education has been tremendous work. This whole gender integration is not just about targeting girls. We have focused heavily at Plan International on male engagement and raising awareness with traditional elders. They often tend to be men. Father figures, spouses, grandfathers—they have tremendous power in decision-making at home. When we want to talk about raising awareness on this, it's not just at the household level but also at the community level with religious leaders and traditional elders.
At the policy level, oftentimes the education policies are not very supportive. For instance, in some countries, when unmarried girls get pregnant, they are not allowed back in school. It's important to make sure that those barriers are removed at the policy level. We almost need a multi-layered, multipronged approach to keeping all children in school, but especially girls.
View Randall Garrison Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
As this is the first day of our study on coercive and controlling behaviour, I just want to take a second to put on the record how we got here. If we were doing a normal study of a private member's bill, as the sponsor of Bill C-247 I would get to make an introductory remark. Let me just say a couple of things briefly.
At the beginning of the pandemic I did a phone-around to the two independent police forces and two RCMP detachments in my riding. All four of those police commanders, when asked what the main thing was that they were seeing in the pandemic, first remarked on the increase in domestic violence calls. It was interesting that it was across the riding. It was interesting that it was the immediate response of all four.
When I had a discussion with them about how police felt about that, they very quickly raised their frustration that their ability to act was limited only to the most serious physical violence and their frustration at their inability to address issues of coercive and controlling behaviour, which quite often—almost always, in fact—are associated with more direct forms of physical violence.
I did a call-around, then, to the service providers for women's groups and women's shelter organizations in my riding and, of course, found the very same thing, that they reported a very sharp increase in demand for their services. Interestingly, they reported the same frustration. In the attempt to try to keep their clients safe, they were frustrated by the inability of the police to act until it was much later on in the relationship.
As a result of those conversations, I began to look at what more we could do as a society to address this problem. The British example was brought to my attention by Mitzi Dean, a local MLA who is now the Minister of Children and Family Development in British Columbia.
I drafted a private member's bill, Bill C-247, which is modelled on the British law, so that we could look at whether this addition to the Criminal Code could help provide another tool for addressing the problems of domestic violence in this country.
The second part was to try to get more people to discuss and be aware of what's being called by some a “shadow pandemic”. I then decided to put forward a motion to this committee to conduct this study.
For me, the study has two parts. One is to raise the profile of this very significant increase in domestic violence and intimate partner violence during the pandemic. The second is to look for solutions, which may involve my private member's bill, but there may be other solutions that we could adopt that would help address this problem.
That's how we got here this morning, from my point of view, and I'm really pleased to have the department officials here to help us try to address this problem. I'm certainly looking forward to the wide variety of witnesses we will have coming forward in later sessions.
We've had an attempt by the federal government to come forward with a strategy to reduce and address gender-based violence.
Ms. Smylie, has that strategy taken into account the phenomenon of coercive and controlling behaviour?
Lisa Smylie
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Lisa Smylie
2021-02-02 11:48
As the member notes, the Government of Canada does have a federal strategy to address and prevent gender-based violence. To date, there has been over $200 million in investments and an ongoing commitment of $40 million per year.
In that strategy, we consider various forms of gender-based violence, including forms related to coercive and controlling behaviour. One of the key things that we're doing under this strategy relevant to this study is an investment of over $24 million in new data and research to date. Part of that is so that we can better understand the phenomenon and all of the various forms of intimate partner violence. It is so complex and for various reasons it's very difficult to measure.
We're also making investments in programs. To date, there's been almost $17 million and 54 projects across the country, which are helping service providers and organization better support survivors and their families. That includes survivors of the types of behaviours we're focused on, coercive and controlling behaviours.
Also of note under this strategy, the Department of National Defence has invested $1.5 million to date in family support services and military member services, as well as sexual assault centres in close proximity to Canadian Armed Forces bases.
Those are just some of the things under this strategy that we are doing. I think one more important thing, since it was mentioned, is that through the RCMP there's been an investment of $4.6 million in policing operations and support. They are undergoing cultural competency training to make sure that officers are able to support victims and survivors appropriately.
View Iqra Khalid Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for your very compelling testimony and your continued hard work on the plight of those who are most vulnerable.
I want to focus my questions specifically on a theme that all of you have touched on today, and that is on women and girls. We saw the impact of COVID on women and girls in Canada, where, I know, over 80% of care providers are women.
Maybe I can go to each of you to see what the impact is of COVID on women and girls in an IDP camp in Myanmar or in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, where there is limited access and where, you have mentioned, there is rampant gender-based violence. What is the impact on women and girls?
Mr. Mueller, I will start with you, and then I'll tweak my question for Ambassador Rae. Please go ahead.
David Mueller
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David Mueller
2020-12-10 19:01
Yes, the COVID outbreak has put more restrictions on the camps, like access to health facilities. Of course, the burden of care is also on women in the camps, as everywhere, but with reduced access to health services. That has been the biggest impact on families and women in particular.
The increase in tension, of course, is also seeing violence against women in the communities. We've seen an uptick in that also due to the fact that we don't have a presence there. Our lack of international presence, due to the further restrictions in movement for us as well as the people, has meant that psychosocial support, health support or even complaints mechanisms are not working as well during this COVID period. Also, for women, the health facilities are not in the camps. They're outside the camps, so that really exacerbates their position as well.
View Iqra Khalid Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Mueller.
Ambassador Rae, first of all, thank you for all the work you've done over the past number of years as a special envoy for Canada. Congratulations on your new appointment as a representative to the United Nations.
You spoke about possible resolutions to the political crisis in Myanmar and how difficult that is. Over the past number of years, the United Nations has been working quite actively to include gender-based violence, which is often used as a weapon in areas of conflict. Obviously, we are talking in the context of COVID. Maybe you can shed some light on how not just Canada but the international community can continue to include women and girls in that conversation for conflict resolution in the climate that Myanmar has been faced with.
Bob Rae
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Hon. Bob Rae
2020-12-10 19:03
First of all, I would just endorse everything that David said. I think the evidence for that is growing.
The other disturbing thing is that, where we thought we'd made progress, things are going backwards, like with early forced marriage, for example. Girls are being married off at very young ages. It's a source of income in the Rohingya culture. When there's no other money and no other work, it just feeds into the system.
There have been significant increases in gender-based violence. I think the point you're making about the role that women and young people can and must play in peacebuilding is very significant.
For the last year, Canada has been the chair of the peacebuilding commission at the UN. We've made the inclusion of women a theme of our work. In all the work we've done around the world and in our hearings that we've held at the UN, we're always focusing on this question of how we can make sure that women are present and that women are part of the solution. We've been doing this even in terms of the recent discussions in Afghanistan.
It's tough. It's a challenge because there's still a lot of resistance from many sources of patriarchy that say that's not the way they do things. The reality is that women are demanding a place at the table and are demanding to be involved. We see it in the effective leadership of the camp in Cox's Bazar, as well as in the larger camp in Sittwe. They are women. They are playing such a critical role. They are tired of being marginalized.
We have a significant issue with respect to education, as it relates particularly to women. The very small efforts and progress we were able to make in education had the most significant impact on women and girls because it finally allowed them to get access to education, which they never had. In northern Rakhine, most young Rohingya and other groups do not have access to education, particularly women. It's often just said there that there's no education after the age of 10 or after the age of 12. This is a really big issue.
I think it's where the logic of the feminist foreign assistance program and the feminist foreign policy becomes overwhelming. It's not an ideological statement. It's just the reality that this is where the major inequities lie right now. If we can drive that agenda, then we can do better on a number of other fronts as well.
View Peter Fonseca Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses who are joining us.
My first couple of questions are for Islamic Relief Canada.
Plan International and some United Nations agencies have informed their members that the pandemic is correlated with an increase in gender-based violence, early marriage and genital mutilation. Care Canada has said that these increases are particularly significant in fragile or conflict-affected countries.
My question is for Mr. Al-Rawni. Has Islamic Relief Canada collected similar evidence in the countries where it's working?
Zaid Al-Rawni
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Zaid Al-Rawni
2020-12-08 15:55
Yes. We're in the process of actually collecting data from various projects in fragile states in places where the incidences of GBV, forced marriage and FGM are an issue. We published a report a few years ago about FGM and the effect of FGM and how faith-based organizations can actually play a pivotal role in ending FGM.
Unfortunately, there is a correlation between an increase in poverty and an increase in vulnerability and the price that women and girls are paying. In every single context we've been to to date, in the most vulnerable communities, women and girls are paying the highest price for the family trying to grapple with the challenges, and that often means fathers and mothers are forcing their children into marriages at a very early age.
We have anecdotal evidence currently from Yemen, where early child marriages are on the rise, unfortunately, in a context where the only difference between now and previously is that the pandemic has exacerbated the situation.
We are still collecting data from most places, but unfortunately, the data that you represented resonates quite heavily and unfortunately stands true. We suspect—not to pre-empt the data we find—that it will be the case, and the research that we produce will say as much.
View Peter Fonseca Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
I know that this November you came forward with your Islamic gender justice declaration. I want to ask you about that declaration. Did it take into account the vulnerabilities created and exacerbated by this pandemic?
Zaid Al-Rawni
View Zaid Al-Rawni Profile
Zaid Al-Rawni
2020-12-08 15:57
Unfortunately, the declaration was produced and worked on before the pandemic. The idea was that it would encourage faith healers to play a pivotal leading role in ending GBV—gender-based violence—in their local communities. They can be some of the strongest actors in local communities in some of the most vulnerable and fragile states where we work.
It didn't take into account COVID specifically, but unfortunately, we suspect that, again, COVID will make things a lot harder for the poor generally, but specifically a lot harder for women and girls.
Pam Krause
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Pam Krause
2020-12-07 20:01
Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Pam Krause, and I am the president and CEO of the Centre for Sexuality. I am also a proud member of the Calgary LGBTQ community. I've worked and volunteered as an advocate on equality and social justice in the local non-profit community for 20 years. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this important consultation.
The Centre for Sexuality is a nationally recognized prevention-focused organization that delivers evidence-based programs and services to normalize sexuality and improve sexual health. We've been leading the way in the areas of sexuality, healthy relationships, human rights and consent for 48 years in Calgary. We serve over 40,000 people in Alberta annually thanks to our many partnerships with schools, community groups, health agencies and corporate partners.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an extraordinary disruption to the social fabric of our country. It has exacerbated existing crises and stretched limited resources beyond their breaking points. Urgent action is needed to protect those Canadians who are most vulnerable because of this pandemic.
Every six days a woman in Canada is killed by a current or former intimate partner. Domestic abuse rates in Alberta are at a 10-year peak. Study after study demonstrates that during times of economic stress and high social anxiety, gender-based violence rates skyrocket. The United Nations has called this the “shadow pandemic”.
Before the pandemic started, our support resources were already stretched. Last year, the Calgary police responded to almost 25,000 calls related to domestic violence. Over 23,000 Alberta women, children and seniors requesting admission to shelters were turned away in the last two years. Women's Shelters Canada released a report showing that 60% of shelters across Canada have reported significant increases in calls and requests since March. The Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services reported a 57% increase in people reaching out for help since the beginning of the pandemic.
This comes with a real-world cost. A Justice Canada study estimates the economic cost of domestic violence in Canada to be as much as $7.4 billion per year.
The Government of Canada should make new investments to ensure that we are rebuilding a society that treats people humanely and equitably. There are proven programs, including our own WiseGuyz program, which can be scaled up to advance this goal, but we're in desperate need of additional resources.
Canada's gender-based violence strategy will enter its second-to-last fiscal year in 2021. We ask you to recommend that the government renew this program now, with new funding and increased focus on prevention.
As we emerge from this pandemic and lockdowns are lifted, we can expect normal behaviours to return to daily life. Many psychological experts anticipate an increase in, or at minimum normal, sexual activity levels post-lockdown.
Before COVID-19, Canada was already facing an epidemic of sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections—STBBIs. Chlamydia and gonorrhea infection rates have been increasing across Canada. Alberta is in the midst of a syphilis outbreak, with infection rates at a 70-year high. As Canadians re-engage in normal pre-lockdown sexual practices, there is a significant risk that these already high infections rates will spike further.
The risks are even more dangerous given that much of Canada's public health infrastructure has been under immense strain. Many sexual health information centres are operating on reduced hours, and testing clinics have shifted focus to COVID. Researchers from the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS recently projected that a 50% disruption to HIV services due to COVID could lead to a 9% increase in new infection rates.
There is an economic case for investing in STBBI prevention, as one study estimates the economic loss attributed to those infected with HIV to be $4 billion, or $1.3 million per person infected.
Sexually transmitted infections and blood-borne infections disproportionately affect marginalized communities, which creates a vicious cycle when combined with other barriers, like stigma, racism and poverty, that mitigate access to sexual health care.
The Public Health Agency of Canada provides $26.4 million annually to community health organizations in Canada through the HIV and hepatitis C community action fund.
To combat this looming sexual health crisis, we ask you to recommend an increase of $50 million annually to address the growing STBBI rates across Canada.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating. I urge all of you to recommend new investments to ensure that we emerge from this pandemic as a more just and inclusive society.
Thank you very much. I would be happy to answer any of your questions.
Jennifer Watts
View Jennifer Watts Profile
Jennifer Watts
2020-12-07 15:49
Thank you for the invitation to speak to the committee today.
I'm also speaking from Mi'kma'ki and would like to recognize that I am on the unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people.
I am the CEO of the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia. We're a full-service delivery agency that offers settlement services, language training, employment services, business development, employer support and many wonderful community integration programs. We have served newcomers in our province for over four decades. Last year we served 10,000 clients and delivered both pre- and post-arrival programs.
I'd like to offer you the perspective of the impact of COVID on a settlement agency.
The first thing I'd like to speak about is the critical role of technology in rapidly disseminating information and continuing the delivery of service to our clients. We were able to pivot and offer practically all of our programs virtually and we have identified many interesting, new, emerging and promising practices. However, there are vulnerable populations that will be left behind because of the lack of digital literacy skills, access to tech equipment and lack of access to Internet either due to cost or simply because it does not exist in rural or small centres.
Access to high-speed Internet needs to be identified as a fundamental necessity and right to keep one's family and community safe, to further education and to find a job. Suggestions within the settlement sector are to develop a multi-dimensional national plan to support at-risk newcomer populations with low digital literacy and no access to technology.
There's also a call to create a national technology capital replacement budget for the settlement sector to ensure that current service providers have the capacity to continue and to expand a hybrid approach to service delivery.
The second thing I would like to highlight is that we've seen an increase in racism and racist attacks particularly focused on Asian and Black populations. It's increased their vulnerability. Engagement of all levels of government is needed. The double impact of racism and COVID is becoming clearer and is very concerning. In the settlement sector, we recognize the need to increase our capacity and further develop skills to respond to increasing racism. It points to the need for us to really develop a national capacity-building approach that includes training and tools to increase settlement staff's ability to appropriately support newcomers experiencing racism.
The third point is the increase in gender-based violence and domestic violence. We're seeing it happening in our country. This is happening across all segments of Canadian society. IRCC has seen the importance of this issue and is supportive in developing specific programs. We would like to highlight and make clear how important this area of work is for furthering our capacity and resources, particularly in the communities we're engaged with.
The fourth area is the importance of family reunification through the family class process. It strengthens the family unit and the family's integration success in Canada and more spaces are welcome. Family class reunification supports families who arrive under all immigration pathways. It not only supports the family, but it also supports Canada's economy and the integration of many people into the labour market. We see, particularly during a crisis such as the pandemic, how important family connections are.
The fifth area is the impact of COVID on privately sponsored refugees and their sponsors. ISANS is a sponsorship agreement holder, and we receive about 100 spots a year. We support that through family reunification with people who are here in our province.
We have heard from co-sponsors of the many painful impacts that have resulted from the closures of visa posts overseas, from the difficulties of people in refugee camps receiving documentation who sometimes have to travel long distances and are unable to get back to camps to people here who are co-sponsors and have been holding apartments for months on end, anticipating that people will arrive, but they have not been able to travel.
There is a whole series of things impacting the privately sponsored refugee network. We would encourage the government to continue to support this very important area of humanitarian response and to continue to work with the co-sponsors and with the sponsorship agreement holder network to resolve these problems.
We'd also like to raise the principle of additionality. Although we certainly support privately sponsored refugees, the very important and continued support for government-assisted refugees is an area that really responds to Canada's humanitarian responsibilities and obligations. Certainly we want to see those numbers continue to be supported, particularly during this time of COVID. We have been receiving GARs since July. It's been a very important commitment on our part and, we think, the federal Government of Canada.
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