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Amilcar Kraudie
View Amilcar Kraudie Profile
Amilcar Kraudie
2021-05-11 18:50
Thank you, and good evening.
I am Amilcar Kraudie, humanitarian adviser at Save the Children Canada. I am here with my colleague Taryn Russell, the head of policy and advocacy.
My comments today will be through the lens of Save the Children's experience working to address children's needs and rights in humanitarian development settings for more than 100 years.
Every year, Save the Children responds to close to 80 emergencies across 120 countries. We have been working to reach children affected by the war in Syria since 2012. We provide emergency and life-saving support, combined with early recovery activities that help restore basic services for children and their families. We welcome this opportunity to brief you on our key concerns for children in northern Syria and Turkey based on our work in this region.
The Syrian crisis for us is fundamentally first and foremost a protection crisis. More than 10 years of conflict continues to have a devastating impact on children inside Syria, as well as those displaced to neighbouring countries. Every child in Syria has been impacted by the ongoing violence and displacement. Violations of children's rights by all parties to the conflict continue, to varying degrees.
The convergence of conflict, COVID-19 and its control measures, and the seeming collapse of the Syrian currency are having profound effects on food security, education and other markers of well-being. Children's mental well-being is an increasing concern, as we are now seeing children resorting to taking their own lives. Almost one in five of all recorded suicide attempts and deaths in northwest Syria are children. The last three months of 2020 saw an 86% jump in suicide rates from the beginning of the year. These figures emerge among constantly deteriorating conditions for people in northwest Syria, including a substantial increase in the impact of COVID-19, poverty, a lack of education and employment, domestic violence, child marriages, broken relationships and bullying, all these in communities that have been reeling from a decade of conflict.
Mental health support is just one of the escalating needs we are seeing in northern Syria. It is estimated that 3.4 million people in northwest Syria alone are in need of humanitarian assistance and remain in areas outside of government control, only reachable with life-saving cross-border assistance. This cross-border assistance through the Bab al-Hawa crossing point in northern Idlib will only become more important, as it is needed to support COVID-19 vaccination efforts. First shipments of the vaccine were received a few weeks ago. Without cross-border access, vaccination efforts in northwest Syria will be all but impossible.
We are particularly concerned about the impact this latest increase and accompanying lockdown will have on children, including the thousands of children who are detained in northeast Syria in camps and other detention settings because of links to ISIS. In the largest camp, al-Hawl, 43,000 out of its 65,000 total population are children. Because of COVID-19 lockdowns and curfews, they are less likely able to access medical services and facilities affecting their health, education and mental well-being. This crisis is made much worse by the closure of the Al Yarubiyah border crossing point last year, cutting off all vital supplies, including medicine and food, from the most vulnerable people, including children. There is no justification for preventing life-saving supplies from reaching people in need, particularly during a global pandemic.
On top of all of that, we do want to highlight that there is also now an increased concern around water scarcity and how that is also impacting multiple needs across the board.
Recognizing the deteriorating situation in northern Syria and escalating humanitarian needs, we offer the following recommendations for the Government of Canada.
First, it is imperative that life-saving aid continues to reach millions in need in northwest Syria, and the UN Security Council should, at a minimum, renew cross-border access through Bab al-Hawa for at least 12 months. The Government of Canada should use any diplomatic influence to ensure this happens.
Second, the international community should also recognize the escalating humanitarian needs in the country and increase humanitarian funding accordingly. It is shameful that the pledging conference for Syria fell so short of its target. This gap needs to be rectified urgently. We are grateful that Canada stepped up and did not cut funding like other donors; however, additional funds could support some of the urgent mental health needs I discussed earlier.
The situations in the camps in northeast Syria are challenging, and the camps are no place for children to grow up. Putting even COVID-19 aside, we regularly see children die or being injured by accidents. It is estimated that 9,000 foreign children are in the region, including about 25 Canadian children, so for our third recommendation, we urge the Government of Canada to increase its efforts to identify the most appropriate routes for repatriation in line with the best interests of the child.
Thank you for your time today.
View Anita Vandenbeld Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will split my time with Mr. Sidhu.
I thank all the witnesses for their incredible expertise and testimony today, much of it very startling.
I did have some questions, but I want to start by following up on something that Mr. Kraudie said in his testimony. I've been on this committee for a number of years. I've worked in international development all over the world in some of the most dangerous places, but I've never heard about children committing suicide, which is incredibly alarming to me. I think you mentioned something like.... I can't remember the statistic, but can you elaborate on that? That is something I don't think we have very often heard in situations like this. Could you tell us what is causing that and what we can do about it?
Amilcar Kraudie
View Amilcar Kraudie Profile
Amilcar Kraudie
2021-05-11 19:02
Perhaps allow me to expand, going back to that issue, on how we recognize at Save the Children that the fact that Syria has been in conflict for 10 years reflects on the wider international community.
As you might imagine, that has a long-term and protracted impact on the well-being of children themselves. That's the first point, which is that there has been no end to the plight, and you can imagine how this happening day in and day out deepens their trauma.
The second point is a salient issue that we've picked up on. It is that Syrian children, even overseas in different locations, also voice that they simply don't want to return to Syria, because for them it evokes images of horror and further trauma.
The whole concept of post-traumatic stress disorder that these children are facing in the coming generations is fairly significant, and we at Save the Children want to put that at the forefront of the durable solutions this specific group needs. Especially when we're talking about durable solutions for the Syrian population, this angle or this element of mental health and psychosocial support is absolutely critical.
Taryn Russell
View Taryn Russell Profile
Taryn Russell
2021-05-11 19:03
I can add that one of the reasons for the recent jump is the surge of COVID cases and the associated lockdowns, which means children are out of school, which is often a safe space. Mental health is really affected by that, as we see here in Canada. Lockdowns, as well as the impact of COVID, also limit the ability of organizations to deliver mental health supports. That's one of the reasons for the recent surge in the last few months.
Thank you.
View Kenny Chiu Profile
CPC (BC)
Thank you. Perhaps you could submit some information on that to the committee.
Media reports indicate that at least 25 innocent Canadian children are trapped in refugee camps not far from Turkey, and the country is launching a military offensive. Is any witness attending the meeting today familiar with the situation of Canadian children in Syria in that part of the world? I have 30 seconds left.
Farida Deif
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Farida Deif
2021-05-11 19:17
I'm sorry, but I think you mean the same Canadian children we were speaking about earlier, because the number is exactly the same.
We know that a remaining 24 Canadian children whose family members have ties to ISIS are detained by the Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria, the de facto authority there.
View Kenny Chiu Profile
CPC (BC)
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
In your opinion, is Canada, at this point, in contravention of, for example, the rights of the child?
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin
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Fionnuala Ní Aoláin
2021-05-11 19:26
Canada and all of the other 57 states that have failed to repatriate their nationals are in clear breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child has explicitly found on this issue, not specific to Canada but in relation to other nationals, that the continued arbitrary detention of children in these camps is a breach of the convention.
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Their answers are extremely important and, above all, insightful.
Since I have a lot of questions, but not much time, I may interrupt you.
History has taught us that women and girls are often the first victims in a conflict. I'd like you to comment on that, because it's not something that has received much media attention. It's also important to make the public aware of the issue, which could help garner more support.
Perhaps Mr. Tembon could comment first.
Efi Tembon
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Efi Tembon
2021-02-16 19:08
Thank you for your question. It's a very important one.
Women and children are indeed those suffering the most in this conflict. More than a million children have not gone to school in four years. It's extremely sad to watch. Children have been burned in their homes by the military. When the military invades a village, people flee, but the women, children and elderly who don't manage to get out are burned in their homes.
A few days ago, I saw a video that was being shared on social media. It showed a father in tears holding his burned baby. That's not the only case. There are mothers whose babies were shot, pregnant women who were killed and women who were beheaded. It's really awful to see what's happening, to see how the conflict is affecting the population, especially women and children.
The international community must step in, if only out of compassion for the women and children.
Christopher Fomunyoh
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Christopher Fomunyoh
2021-02-16 19:10
Yes, I'd like to add two things.
To begin with, the first images we saw of the conflict date back to 2017. We saw villages that had been set on fire in Kumba and an old mother who had been burned alive in her home. Since then, numerous crimes have been committed against women and children. Another incident that comes to mind is the prison guard who was killed in Bamenda in circumstances that remain mysterious.
Second, people have suffered internal displacement, including many young girls and children. They wind up in other regions of Cameroon, especially big cities such as Douala and Yaoundé, where they become involved in prostitution in order to survive.
The generation that is the future is being decimated by the conflict. Meaningful action has to be taken immediately to put a stop to this dreadful war.
Hannah Garry
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Hannah Garry
2021-02-16 19:11
Thank you for that really important question.
I will make a couple of points. First, I just want to echo my fellow witnesses. We do not have the facts sufficiently with regard to this question, and it is something we've come across in our clinic as we've been doing our detailed report. The reports and the fact-finding done so far by international human rights groups have overlooked and not detailed sufficiently the harm done to women and children, so we've made a point of specifically doing in-depth interviews with refugees on this question.
One thing that is becoming of increasing concern is child soldiers and forcible recruitment of children to join in and be part of the conflict. There are concerns that this might become another Sierra Leone-type situation, so I would just flag that for you.
In our in-depth interviews and our anecdotal evidence with women, we've heard about rape and sexual violence being used as weapons of war in the conflict.
A fact-finding inquiry and commission specifically on the treatment of these two groups in the population is critically in need. I can't emphasize that enough.
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
This is my last turn.
I want to thank all three of you for being here today. What you're doing matters tremendously. Our job is to become your voice and spread the message.
All three of you talked about the schoolchildren impacted by the conflict. Mr. Fomunyoh, you said that more than 1.1 million school-age children had been out of school for approximately four years. Some say that it's the government targeting the schools and schoolchildren; others argue that it's the separatists.
Can you shed any light on that for us, Mr. Fomunyoh?
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