Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 15 - Evidence - February 5, 2015
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 5, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 8:01 a.m. to examine and report on how the mandates and practices of the UNHCR and UNICEF have evolved to meet the needs of displaced children in modern conflict situations, with particular attention to the current crisis in Syria.
Senator Mobina S. B. Jaffer (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the twenty-seventh meeting of the Second Session of the Forty-first Parliament of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights.
[Translation]
Our committee has been mandated by the Senate to study matters pertaining to human rights, both in Canada and abroad. My name is Mobina Jaffer, and I am chair of this committee. I am pleased to welcome you to this meeting.
[English]
Before I continue, I would like the other committee members to introduce themselves, and I will start with the deputy chair.
Senator Ataullahjan: Senator Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Ngo: Senator Thanh Hai Ngo from Ontario.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Senator Nancy Ruth from Toronto.
The Chair: On May 6, 2014, the Senate passed the following order of reference: that the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights be authorized to Examine and report on how the mandates and practices of the UNHCR and UNICEF have evolved to meet the needs of displaced children in modern conflict situations, with particular attention to the current crisis in Syria.
[Translation]
The conflict in Syria has triggered one of the most appalling humanitarian and refugee crises in modern history. The consequences of that situation on children are particularly distressing. An estimated 3 million children are internally displaced in Syria, and 1.2 million are refugees abroad. Millions of children are out of school, separated from their families, in need of protection and in need of medical care, both physical and psychological.
Displaced children are also at greater risk of poverty, abuse, neglect, violence, exploitation, trafficking, child marriage and forced recruitment into armed groups.
[English]
Canada is a significant financial contributor to both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Children's Rights and Emergency Relief Organization. Both of these organizations have been working on the ground to provide relief for millions of Syrians who have been affected by this conflict.
The organizations had to use their limited resources to respond to changing humanitarian needs that arise from a modern, protracted conflict. As a result, the mandates and practices have had to evolve accordingly.
We are studying how these mandates are evolving.
This morning, we have a number of witnesses, and we will start with the Norwegian Refugee Council, who is going to be testifying from Amman, Jordan, and her name is Emma Bonar, Youth Programme Manager.
Ms. Bonar, can you hear us?
Emma Bonar, Youth Programme Manager, Norwegian Refugee Council: Yes, perfectly.
The Chair: May we please have your remarks at this time.
Ms. Bonar: Hello, everyone. Good morning. My name is Emma. I work for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Jordan. Thank you for the opportunity to give some field perspective. NRC, or the Norwegian Refugee Council, works with over 1 million displaced Syrians in the region and has more than 1,300 staff. We work inside Syria itself, but also in all the neighbouring countries.
My job is to manage NRC's youth education programs here in Jordan, in the refugee camps. I'm in daily contact with young men and women between the ages of 16 and 32 in the camps every day.
I will talk about Jordan. The issues that I will raise are challenges regionally. As you may know, education is one of the most underfunded of the humanitarian sectors, despite being a basic human right and despite being one of the top priorities that refugees will tell us they have when we talk to them.
I'm sure other speakers after me will go into more detail on the crucial protection situation of children within Syria, but I will focus on those displaced outside of the country.
I will make four key points today. The first one is about youth. In this humanitarian context, youth are falling through the cracks in the response. Part of the reason is that neither UNICEF no UNHCR is mandated to provide education programs for this age group. That is aside from a minimal number of scholarships from UNHCR to youth. Those over 18 do not have so many services.
Youth in any society are a crucial group. They're full of potential, ideas, motivation and energy. They're at that age where their personalities are maturing. We need to find positive outlets and constructive activities for these young people. Much of the debate, I'm sure you are aware, in this region on Syrian youth has been quite negative, focusing more on violence and extremism.
The identities they had when they were in Syria have been completely stripped away from them. On top of being within this really crucial time of their lives, they have had their identities stripped way.
This is the group that will go back and rebuild Syria, we all hope, very soon. They're also one of the biggest influencers on children within their communities. Children look up to youth more than to adults. We know this to be true in all communities. We need skills, training programs and higher education for young people.
Youth themselves need to be recognized as a different demographic. They have different needs. This needs need to be within the mandate of some of the UN agencies in order that activities on the ground can be coordinated and prioritized within the education sector.
My second point is around education itself. There is a very large focus on the expansion of formal education systems in order to accommodate refugees who have arrived in Jordan and other countries. But there is not so much focus on alternative solutions to this issue.
The Government of Jordan and all governments in the region have done an amazing job of trying to accommodate as many Syrian children as possible into their formal schools around the country and in refugee camps. However, unfortunately, the vast majority of these children are still out of school.
With the scale of the Syrian crisis, it is impossible to quickly expand a formal education system to take in all of these children. This would take years in terms of infrastructure and human resources. Alternative education opportunities must be made available so that we can get the children into school now so we don't have a lost generation. These accredited courses can be coordinated with ministries of education. NGOs can implement them and are ready to mobilize straightaway.
The second point is that it is crucial that we support, as a priority, ministries of education in host countries to scale up their formal education provision for refugees. However, we also must have short- and medium-term solutions so the children don't have to wait any longer to get into school. At the moment, for example, we have some kids in our program in the camps that have missed more than three years of school. The policy in this country is that you cannot enter the formal school under any circumstances if you have missed three years of schooling. There is nothing for these children if we don't have alternative education provisions.
My third point is around coordination and complementarity of UN agency mandates. In any country, an education system is made up of a comprehensive set of education services. It takes an individual through from infancy to childhood, adolescence, youth and into adulthood. We must provide a complete cycle of education services if we're going to provide any at all.
Particularly when we move from emergency into protracted crisis, which as you know is the case here in the region at the moment, youth and children in the camp ask me all the time, "What's the point in going to primary school because there's no secondary school to go to afterwards? What's the point in education at all because I can't go to university and be a doctor like I have always dreamed? I might as well just go and work and support my family." If we're going to provide any education, we need to think about education provision through all of the different stages of development of children and youth. The point here is that it is crucial that UN mandates complement each other and that in complementing each other they cater for the broad range of education services that are needed.
My last point is that we have all the UN agencies here. They have a certain amount of influence that small NGOs or large NGOs, like NRC, simply do not have. We need the UN agencies to leverage this influence to make the policy changes and to make sure that the right people know exactly what the needs on the ground are that people like us, who are practitioners in the field, are able to identify. NGOs have the technical expertise to go out and do great programs, to develop and implement these programs and to keep developing them, but we do not have this leverage that UN agencies have. We need strong advocacy and leadership. We need these agencies to work together to bring out the issues in the field and to represent not only me and NRC but also all the different agencies and the young people in the community.
I speak today for NRC and for the thousands of young Syrians, 3,000 of whom have been through our programs in Jordan in the past two years. I would like to think that I have quite a good understanding of how they feel about this situation. Their dreams have been shattered. They ask us on a daily basis for things that we're not in a position to provide and that we don't have the power to give them.
To recap on the four points I made, first, we need recognition of young people as a distinct group with distinct needs, and we need more learning opportunities for them, as currently they are not within anyone's mandate.
Second, we need alternative education systems in place because ministries of education cannot be expected to quickly accommodate all of the refugees in their formal system right now. We need to support better in this.
Third, we need comprehensive education provision. We cannot just have basic education. It needs to lead to something else, and people need to see a purpose in participating in education.
Fourth, we need increased coordination, leadership and advocacy on the part of UN agencies, particularly UNICEF and UNHCR, given their mandate in education, in order to reflect the challenges, needs, et cetera, that we have on the ground and that we can identify in the field.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Bonar. We will hear from Mr. Stephen Cornish, Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders. Welcome.
Stephen Cornish, Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders: Thank you for holding this most important session today. There is no question in our minds, Doctors Without Borders, that the global humanitarian system is struggling to meet the needs of men, women and children in many of the most desperate conflict zones around the world, whether that be in Central African Republic, South Sudan or Syria, the main topic of today's discussion.
Populations desperately require assistance because of a number of challenges to the system, including major NGOs, organizations like MSF and the UN agencies we will be discussing today. Sadly, the system is just not able to provide the basic minimum building blocks for life that it is intended to do.
My organization, Doctors Without Borders, is a participant in that global system and recently published a report called Where Is Everyone? It examines some of the shortcomings of the international aid response. The study pointed to a pattern of failure, unfortunately, by a system that is sometimes too sluggish, often too risk-averse, and sometimes incapable of mounting surge capacity and rapid response to reach those who are most vulnerable in a timely manner. In the case of Syria, the crisis has been called the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. Certainly, it has been at the forefront of world media attention. Sadly, the brutal exercise of misery we're seeing on the ground is just not able to be remediated by all of the actions of the said group we're looking at; and there seems to be no tangible relief in sight.
Syria, as you know and as you spoke to, chair, has seen a massive exodus of its population. One third of the population is either displaced or seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, the system is not able to keep up with the magnitude of this crisis. Large NGOs, member states and UN agencies are all part of the system and share in the challenges at hand. While mandate reviews may be in order to ensure that the UN agencies are tasked and equipped to respond to today's interstate conflicts, the United Nations and its agencies will nonetheless remain central to the functioning of this system. Certainly, we at Doctors Without Borders agree that reviews are worthwhile exercises and are very pleased to participate today. We see it as essential that they consider a number of the overarching practical challenges affecting the aid system today.
One of the first challenges I will mention is around status of the individuals. The humanitarian system is built on a set of categories that dictate the level of assistance that someone will receive. That assistance level will depend on how we label that person, whether we call that person a displaced person, a refugee or, as in the cases of many of the surrounding countries of Syria today, only persons of concern, which means that we're not actually talking about refugees, although we are using that moniker.
In fact, the permissions obtained in neighbouring countries by those fleeing Syria are generally good for only six months. They struggle to receive those permissions. When they first arrive in a neighbouring country, it can take them months just to get into the system to start getting assistance. Meanwhile, families are forced to beg, sell possessions and do whatever it takes just to scrape by. When the six months roll around, they have to get another renewal of that status. While that status is being renewed, they lose access to a number of services and, therefore, become vulnerable again. We have been subjecting many people whom we think are protected and assisted to multiple cycles of vulnerability every six months over the past four years. Something has to be done about this.
We found that given the differences in what we call people, they also get different levels of assistance. It seems very odd to us that the principle determinant of assistance is the categorization rather than the actual needs or vulnerability of the people in question. This seems partly a function of legal mandate and of bureaucracy; but in either case, the people receiving these goods are dependent on the category they find themselves in and unable to change it, despite the fact that all people have the same building blocks and need the same building blocks of life in order to survive and to thrive, to care for their children and to take care of themselves.
A second important determinant that we have noticed through these studies is that much of the international community's assistance and know-how was built around camp settings and work in mainly Sub-Saharan Africa, and we are finding ourselves more and more engaged in urban settings and middle-income countries. This comes with a number of challenges.
In the Syrian context, for example, a number of the displaced have taken refuge not in camp settings, like we see in Jordan, but amongst the general population. Some 70 to 80 per cent of refugees in Jordan are amongst the host population, which makes it much more difficult to identify them and respond to their needs. Unfortunately, we still see a preponderance of the funding being dedicated to camp settings where it is actually easier to assist refugees rather than in the host populations where it is much more difficult.
It is still the case today that those who are registered with the UNHCR generally receive a larger and a better assistance package, which of course can be a positive thing, but not when we look at the numbers of those who are beyond the system and whom we certainly must do a better job at reaching.
The third and perhaps the biggest challenge I will mention is the limited access to the Syrian population itself. Part of that comes from this phenomenon of refugees settling outside of camp settings in the neighbouring countries, but much more of it has to do with the challenge of actually reaching Syrians in desperate need within Syria itself.
We certainly welcome the recent UN resolution on cross-border humanitarian access. We have been calling for this cross-border assistance to be increased for a very long time because, as you know, most of the assistance from the UN system and from the Red Cross system, both systems doing truly amazing work in very difficult conditions, has to be funneled through the Syrian government. Therefore, sometimes it is open for them to be able to access certain regions and sometimes it is not. The majority of the population in biggest need finds itself today in opposition areas, which are much less assisted than government areas. While we welcome the resolution, we haven't yet seen that resolution translate into the true surge and massive scale-up of aid that would be needed in those hardest-to-reach areas.
There are a number of challenges and reasons for that, some of them bureaucratic and many of them security restraints that affected our organization and our ability to reach these places as well. A number of other hurdles actually have led to many areas in Syria being humanitarian deserts today, off-limits to essential aid and severely under-assisted.
Your focus here on the impact on children of course is the primary concern of UNICEF. I would posit that until we can make sure that many of those basic building blocks of life are addressed to those family members, we will have great difficulty. I think UNICEF and other agencies have had to make difficult ethical choices. Some of that speaks to why there is somewhat a lack of educational opportunities.
We still have very grave challenges in offering safe births not only inside Syria but even in Lebanon, where families are forced to co-pay in order to access a hospital. Many pregnant women are going back to the war zone in order to give birth because they can't afford the co-payment. There is no pre- and post-natal care for most pregnant Syrian women. Inside Syria, we are seeing malnutrition among those under six months old, in a place that used to have a food abundance, because formula is so expensive and in many cases non-existent.
We are not even making the basic building blocks. We don't have proper health care. We have children and families still living in tents in the mud in Lebanon in very cold weather, four years on into this conflict. When they present to our clinics, we're treating them for their respiratory illnesses and other things, but that's far too little and far too late when we are allowing these people to continue to live in misery four years on.
We know the big numbers, and education is clearly important. UNHCR is estimating that some half million children who have sought refuge are unable to receive education, and some 2.3 million inside Syria. There is no question that that is a huge concern and must continue to be met, but given the fact that most of the international calls in the UN agencies are severely underfunded, they're having to make these very difficult choices.
These are just some of the examples of the overwhelming challenges that the system is facing. It is an indication of some of the shortcomings and the reasons why. While the UN agencies and key NGOs may be at the heart of that system, the deplorable state of the current humanitarian situation in Syria cannot simply be explained by mandate reviews or finger pointing. The first responsibility lies with the parties to the conflict themselves who have to allow access and who, if following international humanitarian law, would perhaps reduce some of the suffering on their own populations.
Then, of course, it goes to Syria's neighbours, who are doing an incredible job and suffering under a huge burden, hosting refugee populations on their soils. All have at one time or another closed their borders to new arrivals. Lebanon and the UN have instituted user-pay schemes, as I just spoke about in Lebanon for health care, which was modelled on the UN model. They didn't want to have two differences in the same population, which one can understand, but if you have been living in Lebanon in a camp for 20 years, you are certainly more able to pay a user fee than if you are a vulnerable Syrian family who just fled across the border. Recently we have seen, according to Human Rights Watch, that Jordan has forcibly deported vulnerable Syrian refugees, including wounded men and unaccompanied children, back into the war zone. These violations of international obligations by members of the UN community undermine the basis of the global humanitarian system in the first place.
We can't, however, leave the burden of care simply to the neighbours. The actions and inactions of our own governments, of Western governments farther afield, also have a huge impact. Overcrowded schools and lack of government services for refugees and host countries are the result of budget shortfalls in states that have been left to foot the bill for hundreds of thousands of Syrians on their doorsteps. Wealthier nations have failed to adequately share the refugee burden, to offer sufficient financial assistance and to take on enough refugees themselves in second- and third-party resettlements to ease the strain.
We have seen now increasingly desperately Syrians who are risking perilous journeys cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of a way out. Rather than welcoming those, we see the European governments closing their doors, preferring to leave Syrians out in the cold.
Syria truly is a disaster, and we all have a responsibility. That the circumstances for those affected by the conflict in Syria should be this dire this long is truly unacceptable. The UN system is dependent on the political will of its member states, including Canada. We, too, as citizens, bear responsibility for what is happening to those families in Syria. We are at the forefront of the international community, and, therefore, we share in this responsibility. The United Nations remains vital to this effort, but its failures belong to all of us. As long as Syrian children continue to live in desperation, in hunger, in mud, in cold and in illness, we all need to resolve to do better.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We will now go to a joint presentation from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Canadian Red Cross. I understand Mr. Elsharkawi will start this presentation.
Hossam Elsharkawi, Director, Emergencies and Recovery, International Operations, Canadian Red Cross: Thank you very much, senators. We really appreciate having this opportunity to speak to you and share with you our experiences and observations from a Red Cross field perspective.
The Canadian Red Cross and many Red Crosses around the world, including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, have been responding to this crisis for the past four years. What I will try to do is paint a picture of realities on the ground, things that we have seen and things we have done and continue to do, working alongside the Syrian Red Crescent.
I will try to highlight three key messages. One is about the ongoing humanitarian needs; two is the work of the Syrian Red Crescent and their role in meeting those needs and gaps; and three is the serious concern we have about the deteriorating health conditions.
I will also speak from first-hand observations of a number of missions I have done over the last four years in and around Syria. There is no doubt that what we observe in the refugee situation — conditions in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Jordan, and the internally displaced populations within Syria — is truly a daily struggle for survival. It is a daily struggle to eat and have safe drinking water and a roof over your head.
I have been in the Red Cross movement for over 25 years. I have worked in over 30 countries in disasters and wars. I thought I had seen a lot, but this conflict really challenges us all because it has presented some of the worst humanitarian consequences and suffering that we have seen in years.
On a recent visit to a refugee settlement, a slum-looking area in northern Lebanon, in clear view of the Syrian hills, just on the border, we visited a population of families that had crossed the border some months ago from Syria into Lebanon. Of course, because we are the Red Cross, they congregated, wanted to tell us their stories and share with us their experiences. We wanted to listen and understand the needs.
In this experience, many children rush and want to talk to you and touch you. They're curious. What struck me is the case of this one woman who came up to us with a severely malnourished child and said to us, "I can't save this child. You take him to Canada." These are the stories we face.
As a result of some of the things that we have seen in Lebanon, the Canadian Red Cross working alongside the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Lebanese Red Cross have launched mobile clinics with the support of the Canadian government. The network of mobile clinics has now seen over 87,000 patients, of which over 65 per cent are women and children. But that remains a drop in the bucket in terms of the needs of the population. And that's just of what we've observed in Lebanon.
It is important also to note that in this context, a lot of the aid we have seen coming to those displaced populations is from host communities. It's undocumented. It's hard to put numbers to it. But four years on, those host communities, their abilities to support those populations are totally depleted. Those host communities are now in need of support, be it host communities in Turkey, in Lebanon or in Jordan.
I will pause here and go to my colleague from the ICRC who will speak further, and I'll come back and illustrate some other points about the Syrian Red Crescent.
Rob Young, Senior Delegate, International Committee of the Red Cross: Thank you, Madam Chair and senators, for the invitation today for the International Committee of the Red Cross to speak with you. I take this opportunity as well to thank the government and the people of Canada for the significant support that comes every year to the International Committee of the Red Cross that allows us to work in contexts like Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, year after year, in the face of tremendous humanitarian challenges.
What I thought I might do is just explain the activities on the ground of the International Committee of the Red Cross and our understanding of the humanitarian needs, which we hope might be helpful for you in your consideration of the issues you're examining with this committee, relating especially to the UN response to the needs on the ground in Syria and the region.
Maybe it's worth mentioning that the ICRC, as I'm sure most of you know, senators, is really the oldest humanitarian organization in the world. We operate in about 80 countries with a growing budget in the year ahead, which I'm sad to say, is approaching $1.4 million U.S. We have 13,000 employees. Our mandate is simple. It is to protect and assist victims of conflict.
Sadly, today Syria has become our single biggest operation in the world. In all of the conflicts and places that we work, Syria has become the biggest. Add that to our response to the Syrian crisis in the neighbouring countries — as Dr. Elsharkawi has mentioned, the Red Cross and Red Crescent is responding in all of those — and you have a humanitarian situation which is almost difficult to describe given its magnitude. It is overwhelming for all of us in the Red Cross and the Red Crescent movement, the UN, NGOs and governments to try and respond to that.
The major challenges, if I can describe it simply, that our colleagues face on the ground and that the populations face are, above all, the lack of respect for international humanitarian law. The basic rules of war accepted by cultures, civilizations and governments everywhere are simply not being well respected in the conflict in Syria. Because of that, the humanitarian needs are so terribly vast.
Part of the lack of respect for humanitarian law, which is very important, relates to the lack of humanitarian access, meaning the inability of people to move freely and to respond to their own needs. Therefore, this creates a burden on humanitarians to try and find and respond to the needs of people and, above all, to understand their needs.
Those serious constraints on access are partly because the parties to the conflict are not living up to their legal obligations and partly because of security constraints imposed on all of us working on the ground, because of the way the conflict is being pursued.
What this means is vast humanitarian needs, and it's worth underlining that those most vulnerable in the conflict in Syria, as in all conflicts, are women and children. The rules of humanitarian law make special provision to protect women and children because we recognize they are vulnerable. But those rules, as I mentioned, are not being adequately respected, putting women and children, in a range of ways, at a particular risk.
So what's the response of the International Committee of the Red Cross? It's vast, as I've said, and it's inadequate. I think all of us on the humanitarian side have to acknowledge that together our efforts are not anywhere close to meeting the needs. It's timely that your committee is looking at this and I hope challenging all of us to do more and helping to support us in that.
I want to mention particular aspects of our response. Very quickly, I'll start with our response. We have four offices in Syria: Damascus, Tartus, Aleppo and Homs. We work very closely with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Every day, ICRC and SARC trucks, water engineers and medical personnel are crossing checkpoints and negotiating access. This is important, slow, tedious, dangerous, but vital work. We have 52 international staff. As of last week, in Syria, we have over 300 Syrian colleagues working closely with us. We have storage space in three cities for food assistance, which is mostly channeled through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
I wanted to talk particularly today about our work on water, because I think the needs of the population for water illustrate the challenges, but also the possibilities to be able to assist the population in Syria.
The infrastructure to provide water, like most services in Syria, has been seriously degraded by the ongoing conflict there. Municipal facilities to provide water are inadequate and are breaking down. Fortunately, the ICRC has been able, with the agreement of the Syrian authorities and increasingly with the agreement of the armed opposition, to work at providing assistance to the water system. Concretely what does this mean? It means providing tons and tons of chemicals so that water purification can continue. It means trucking hundreds of thousands of litres of water to IDP camps within Syria where populations, including women and children, are taking some sort of shelter.
As a quick number, some 172,000 persons received bottled water over the last year — a ridiculous number of empty bottles — but an important short-term solution amongst all of the needs.
The ICRC is working on more than 450 water projects in Syria. We can say that in the last six months of 2014, there has been an increase, not a dramatic and not a revolutionary increase, but a significant increase in our ability to be accepted by the warring parties, to be able to have access to communities and ensure that water engineers, water supplies and spare parts can cross lines and get into the different communities.
I mention water because once water supplies are working in the besieged cities, in the cities that we know about, Homs, Aleppo and so on, the water doesn't make distinctions between opposition and government. The population that needs water isn't concerned about their political and other affiliations. They're concerned about the needs of their families. When water systems are working, as the parties are increasingly allowing us to do, then the population's most basic needs can be met.
I don't want to give you the impression that it's satisfactory. The needs, as I mentioned, greatly outstrip our ability to respond. Similarly with health, the ICRC, working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, is able to provide increasing numbers of clinics and hospitals with supplies and emergency equipment to help with births and post-natal care as the parties accept on the ground that this is neutral, independent humanitarian action. It's not nearly significant, but this cross-line work and this ability to negotiate our way between the parties are increasing and certainly part of the solution. It's a challenge for all of us to be able to do that.
Additionally, the ICRC is able to do some other work. In the last few months we've been able to announce publicly that we've started visiting prisons controlled by Syrian authorities, doing our classic detention work. We see this as an important breakthrough in acceptance of the need for neutral, independent and impartial work and also as a chance to understand better the needs of the population and connect detained persons to their families, who are often displaced and wondering about their whereabouts.
In a number of cases, the ICRC has been able to play its role as a neutral intermediary, in effect negotiating and assisting negotiations between parties at a local level. For example, in the case of Barzeh, the two parties agreed that a vital primary health care program can be resumed, and the ICRC and SARC can provide supplies to it.
I could give you many more examples. It might be more important to listen to some of your questions and respond. In conclusion, I would say thank you again to Canada for the support. The needs continue to be vast. We're all challenged to do more. Our common humanity requires us and calls upon us to do more, especially for the women and children of Syria.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Young. Did you have concluding remarks, Mr. Elsharkawi? May I ask that you be brief because there are many questions.
Mr. Elsharkawi: Yes. It's important to note that the Syrian Red Crescent has been doing the heavy lifting in delivering aid in Syria, as 60 per cent of assistance coming in from the UN agencies is funneled through the Syrian Red Crescent. Like Canadian Red Cross volunteers across this country, they are spread out among SARC's branches across their country. They're the ones who receive the aid, distribute the aid and report on that. They are the ones who know the communities, are at the front line and in the engine room. To date, they have lost 47 lives, volunteers and staff performing these duties.
They had been trying to access one particular area 60 kilometres north of Damascus for months. They were finally given permission with 24 hours' notice. They assembled 15 trucks overnight, loaded them with medicines, food and other supplies and made their way. When they came to the first checkpoint, which was Syrian, the Syrian army searched the trucks. They were asked to proceed, and the Syrian army officer saluted the Red Crescent. They went in. The next checkpoint was rebel. In a similar exercise, a rebel army officer searched the trucks and saluted the Red Crescent.
It is not easy to get that kind of respect and credibility when your country fragments, like Syria has. They have been able to do this because they have stuck to the fundamental humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. It's not easy. They can't access everywhere. But with the support of many Red Cross units, they have been able to maintain that. The trucks held supplies and food from the UN and medicines from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Some trucks were purchased by other Red Cross units, including the Canadian Red Cross. The volunteers and staff, the ones at the forefront, were from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. This is critical to note.
We need all of these key players, Doctors Without Borders, the ICRC, the UN and the various Red Cross units, to work in this loose network to provide for the Syrians wherever they may be and wherever access is granted. It continues to be difficult, and certainly more aid is required because the health supplies are dwindling.
To give you an example, Syria pre-conflict was pretty much self-sufficient in terms of medicines and medical supplies and so on. The cost of an inhaler for asthmatics was $1. Today's cost of an inhaler for asthmatics is $20. Unless it is supplied by us, those who need it cannot afford it. The shelves in many clinics and pharmacies that have survived this conflict are pretty much empty unless we supply them.
The Chair: Thank you for all the presentations. You have certainly given us a lot to think about it. Our first questions come from Senator Andreychuk, who suggested this study.
Senator Andreychuk: We have very little time, so I'll try to restrict the questions.
Part of this study was not to focus on the aid and whether governments are providing enough, but because of the desperation of this Syrian situation, which started as an internal conflict, like we've seen in Africa, there was optimism that it could be stopped at some point with enough political will, but that hasn't happened, and it's getting more desperate rather than better on the political side. We see no end to it until something in the dynamics of the three groups within Syria determines them to stop this aggression, whether ISIL, the opposition leaders or Assad's regime, which is where it all started.
Part of the issue is that we've heard you can only do so much under your mandate, et cetera. Is it now time to understand that the kinds of conflicts we'll face will not be the traditional types of conflicts that started the Red Cross, UNICEF and UNHCR involvements? Humanitarian law being important, we should talk about the changes.
Mr. Young, my question is to you: Do the laws now take into account the situations in Lebanon and Jordan, where 20 per cent in refugee camps was contemplated, and now 80 per cent are embedded in the community? They went there not under any international auspices in many cases. They fled there, some with resources, some without resources. In Jordan, their overwhelming fear was destabilization of their own country, which would just increase the conflict.
How do we contemplate these changes in a new international understanding or changes to mandates or international law?
Mr. Young: I'll try to be brief. It won't surprise you if I, as a representative of the ICRC, tell you that humanitarian law remains vital, important, relevant and appropriate. The same rules that date back to the 1800s have been adapted and remain relevant today, even to these sometimes-called asymmetrical and complex contexts. This is not the first time this century that we've seen conflicts with armed opposition groups of irregular forces; so the law is certainly relevant. Persuading parties different from those we used to know to follow the law remains a challenge. The ICRC has programs to brief armed opposition forces that we carry out in the conflict zones in Syria and mainly in Jordan, with the agreement of the authorities there.
As to your other question, in this whole debate, we're talking about the UN and the UN humanitarian response. I might share my observations having spent four and a half years representing the ICRC in New York as part of our permanent observer delegation. The unrealistic pressures on the UN humanitarian system result from precisely what you mentioned: the inability of the political side of our multilateral system to resolve these conflicts. Having sat through many more hours of debate at the Security Council and the General Assembly than I can recount, I would say that as much as a review of humanitarian mandates is vital, more efforts are needed, and Canada might play a vital role here, to revive the multilateral system and the ability to prevent and resolve conflicts more quickly. Without that, the humanitarian needs will spiral in the complex kinds of conflicts we see with multiple armed actors such as in Syria.
Senator Andreychuk: When we were talking about the Assad regime and those opposing it, it was a very different dynamic until ISIL hit. The horrific actions that this group is taking are way beyond any understanding of law or respect for law. I find it a little hard that you say you maintain the international law. There is absolutely no respect for this. How does the Red Cross work in that situation in the areas controlled by ISIL?
Mr. Young: I would agree with you that the law is not being adequately respected, but I wouldn't agree, with all due respect, that there is no respect for it. It's because of some awareness of the law and the humanitarian needs, the humanitarian principles, that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the ICRC are able this week, last week and we hope next week to, as Dr. Elsharkawi has described, cross checkpoints in Syria from government areas to opposition areas, some of those controlled by ISIS and a variety of other armed actors, and safely deliver medical supplies, safely provide water and safely evacuate wounded.
The point is that there is some respect, and our challenge is to create more incentives for those parties to respect the law better. This is a tremendous challenge. Since modern humanitarian law has been established, it's a tremendous challenge to ensure respect. Every time we do, one child or one woman or one prisoner is better off.
Mr. Cornish: I can say one thing on the destabilization that we are all so concerned about. We actually see in the Syrian conflict both a success and a lack of success. If you look at the situation with Jordan, which many Western countries saw as an ally, there was much assistance that went in not only for the camp populations and the refugees but also for the host populations and the government. Where we had the greatest need, in Lebanon, for political reasons, many governments didn't assist impartially at the beginning. People feared the destabilization but also didn't go in with advisers, didn't go in to accompany and didn't try to roll out the same type of assistance to meet the needs in Lebanon. While we commiserated around the potential destabilization, the fact that we didn't go back to humanitarian law according to the need and insist on impartiality according to need is something that we're now perhaps seeing the limitations of and something we could keep at the forefront of our minds in other conflicts around the world.
Senator Eggleton: Thank you for your presentations. These people live under a very long list of the most deplorable conditions imaginable. I made note of one comment that Médecins Sans Frontières made, and that is, "Where is everyone?" Yes, we can cite Canada and other Western countries that have made contributions or are doing things, but I think an awful lot more needs to be done. It looks like the dynamics, as Senator Andreychuk pointed out, are forever changing, and we don't know how long these people are going to be in that condition. I think we have to bring more of them into this country. We opened the doors for the Vietnam refugees in the 1970s and the Hungarian refugees back in the 1950s in much greater numbers than we've ever talked about in this context for the Syrian refugees. It's time that we stepped up to the plate, both the government of this country and the governments of the other countries, and the people of this country as well.
To change these UN organizations, mandate reviews and all of these things that need to be changed in the way they operate and the way they coordinate, our experience with UN agencies is those things can take forever, and the crisis is here and now.
I have a couple of questions. First, what are the two or three things you think we could advocate to these international UN organizations that can make things much better at this point in time?
Second, I have a specific question to Ms. Bonar from the Norwegian Refugee Council, who talked about education and the youth that are falling through the cracks. I take it when they get to 18 they don't get the educational support, or maybe there just isn't any secondary education support, just primary, not to mention post-secondary or higher education or skills training, which seems to be something that isn't happening very often.
You talked about alternatives. Maybe you could talk a bit more about that. For example, could electronic Internet systems be of some value? People nowadays seem to have them all over the world. Certainly agencies, even your own, could perhaps supply that kind of educational aid.
Those are my two questions. I had more, but given the time —
Ms. Bonar: Thank you. They are very interesting questions. On the question of the role of technology in education, this is fascinating right now. We have really high levels of education in the refugees that are coming over from Syria. At the moment, we're looking into options of using free Linux-based technology in camps and outside of camps in coordination with various universities around the world to provide higher education opportunities for youth so that they don't have to leave their communities.
One the biggest issues is that scholarships, which are wonderful and I fully support, take young people, who again are one the most important groups in the community, away from their families, away from their structures and away from what they know and where they need to be.
Technology definitely has a place. However, for example, here are some of the challenges: Online education is not recognized in Jordan at all. There is no one who is interested, to my knowledge, within the sector in funding this kind of activity. The classic humanitarian response for education has usually been basic education — little bits of early childhood, little bits of secondary. We have options of online certified training in vocational subjects. These exist around the world, and Jordan has the infrastructure and the Internet connections. We have computer labs. We're ready to go. We're ready to do it. Again, going back to my point, we need the leadership to change the policies in the country so that we can do these activities on the ground.
Mr. Elsharkawi: I think you raise a very good point about advocacy. Our view is that while we as humanitarians can do our best to provide for the needs, the solution has to be a political solution. Therefore, there has to be a very active parallel track seeking a political solution. Most refugees we interact with when we do needs assessments, as we often do all the time, are not talking about needs and going abroad and so on. They say, "We want to go home." Going home means a political solution.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you for your presentations this morning. My question is to you, Mr. Cornish. You asked, "Where is everyone?" You claim that the local civil society actors in Jordan are effective and able to reach some of the most vulnerable urban refugees but lack the capacity to coordinate with UN agencies, such as attending meetings or fulfilling reporting requirements. I would like to ask everyone, is that similar to the experience you've had, and what can be done to improve coordination with the UN?
Also, from a previous witness, we heard that 75 per cent of the aid that is provided goes to the refugees, while 25 per cent is given to the local poor population because of the building resentment. Are you finding that that is true?
Mr. Cornish: There are a number of challenges for local organizations to not only be able to access funding and access the larger coordination mechanisms, but also to be able to carry out their functions when you have the complete systematic collapse we're seeing in area such as Syria, Central African Republic or south Sudan.
Several things impede upon us as external agencies if we're going to go the route of trying to strengthen those national capacities and local groups. They include, of course, training. They include search capacity. They include also ensuring that those organizations have the technical know-how and capabilities to be able to carry out their activities. But in situations where you have complete collapse, you also need accompaniment, and that's very much noted by the way the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the ICRC are conducting their operations inside Syria.
There's a protection element that we must also take into account and sadly is not often taken into account by many agencies. If we don't build those things into the budgets and do that preemptively, you can't just expect local capacities to function on their own without any protection.
Sadly, it is a little bit the way we're moving. It might be of importance to this committee, because heading towards the World Humanitarian Summit, there is a lot of emphasis saying, "Look, the needs are so great around the world we simply can't meet them all. So what are we going to do? We will build resiliency. Local capacity and local governments will solve things." That can work well when you have a high-impact storm or when you have the annual hunger gap period, but it doesn't work very well when you have a complete collapse and when you have a civil conflict where just being part of one ethnicity or one group or one area might put you at risk and an impossibility of being able to carry out your functions.
We absolutely have to accompany these groups, and that accompaniment is also part then of doing the types of trainings and leading the local capacity that will allow them to fill in the types of reports and all of this. You can also look at the other end and try to simplify it all, but that might take a little longer.
The Chair: We will run out of time, but I will extend this for a few moments.
In the report that Senator Ataullahjan just spoke about, you have said that one of the things is that you have seen it in the DRC, and you have seen it in Sudan and Syria now. The UN is at the heart of the dysfunction. Historical mandates and institutional positioning have created a system with artificial boundaries to the detriment of those needing assistance and protection. How could we improve those systems? What would be provided?
Mr. Cornish: One of the main challenges is that in many of these conflict areas, we have gone in at a time where we wanted to do peace building or state building. We have made one head of the UN for all functions, for the political side and for the humanitarian side, and we have also tasked the UN to be the coordinator, the funder and implementer, which puts it in a very difficult position to be able to learn and move along.
For the two-headed problem between the political and the humanitarian, we expect those same forces that are carrying out a political mandate to strengthen a government to then function in time of crisis. That's where it starts to break down. Many of the agencies and big organizations no longer are able to work unless the UN can pave the way. When the UN is working well, that works well. When it doesn't, it makes a great setback. We saw this in south Sudan where both of the warring parties mistrusted the UN. It stopped the ability for the aid system to roll out for a number of months. It has since rebounded and they have done a mighty job, but we really have to separate the humanitarian function from the political function. If we did that, I think we would already start to be working on the basic building blocks of rebuilding respect for international, impartial humanitarian aid.
The Chair: Ms. Bonar, you talked about not having education for three years and dropping out of the system, and you talked about alternative programs. I'm sure you have some alternative programs. What kind of programs do you have, and what are you seeing as the results of those programs?
Ms. Bonar: We have quite similar programs in all the countries of the region. When I talk about alternative education, I'm really talking about the children who come over and have missed some schooling. Even if they have only missed six months of schooling, these kids are not in a position to go into a classroom with their age-grade peers because of how much they have missed. We have situations of ten-year-olds in classrooms with eight-year-olds. Inevitably, they drop out. It doesn't work.
What we're doing right now is we have a catch-up program. These kids can catch up with their age-grade peers and reintegrate back into the formal school system, wherever they are in the country. This works if the formal system has capacity once they're finished. The alternative system must not only help them catch up, but it must stay in place until the formal system has a capacity to absorb all of the students.
This is currently not a recognized program. We have a collaboration between the ministry of education in Jordan and NRC and UNICEF and UNHCR in order to make this program accredited so that children will be certified at any point when they leave. We can certify them, they go back to Syria, they go to another region in Jordan, they can re- enter the system, and their education is recognized. We hope it will be approved by the summer of 2015. This is the kind of accredited program that has worked in many other humanitarian contexts and that we would love to see endorsed by ministries in the region.
The Chair: Thank you very much. There are so many questions that senators have of you. We are hoping to go to the region. When we return, I'm sure we will have more questions of you, and hopefully we can invite you again. Thank you very much for your presentations.
In the second panel, we have, as individuals, James Milner, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton University; and François Audet, Professor, Department of Management and Technology, University of Quebec at Montreal. We will start with you, Mr. Milner.
James Milner, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, as an individual: Thank you and good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with you this morning and to contribute to your work on this very important topic.
My testimony this morning is drawn from my own research on the politics of the global refugee regime and the evolving mandate and practice of UNHCR. I will draw especially on this book I recently co-authorized with two colleagues from the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford. I have arranged to leave a copy of this book for the committee for your consideration at a later date. There's no test at the end, so fear not.
When answering questions, I will endeavour to make reference to the specific needs of refugee children and the current crisis in Syria, although I should state from the outset that I am not an expert on either of these topics. I'm happy to make reference to them. Instead, my testimony will provide a brief global overview of the changes we have seen in the scope of UNHCR's work over the past 60 years, some of the challenges now facing UNHCR and some steps that UNHCR can take to ensure that it is able to respond to these challenges.
As you know, UNHCR was created by the UN General Assembly in December 1950. Its origins can best be described as inauspicious. UN member states gave UNHCR a temporarily defined and limited mandate. Indeed, it was intentionally created with several structural constraints, many of which continue to affect the organization.
First, UNHCR was created with a non-political mandate and was to work under the authority of the UN General Assembly. This meant that UNHCR was and remains constrained by the interests of states.
Second, UNHCR was given no permanent funding to fulfill its mandate but was to rely on voluntary contributions to complete its work. This remains the most significant constraint on the work of the organization, as 98 per cent of UNHCR's budget is met through voluntary contributions. This gives donors significant influence, especially considering that the top 10 donors account for 80 per cent of contributions to UNHCR. As we have seen in UNHCR's history, if the major donors disagree with UNHCR's work and if they respond by suspending contributions, then UNHCR ceases to function.
Third, the High Commissioner was given a mandate only for those persons displaced as a result of events occurring before 1951, effectively limiting its activities to persons displaced in Europe in the aftermath of World War II.
Despite these constraints, UNHCR's history is a history of growth and adaptation. In fact, the past 60 years have seen UNHCR grow from a small technical organization to a truly global, complex organization. The story goes that UNHCR's entire global staff of 30 gathered at UNHCR's first Christmas party in Geneva in 1951 as the High Commissioner sat at the piano playing Christmas carols and everyone sang along. Today UNHCR has a global staff of 8,600 working in 126 countries. What explains this extraordinary history of growth, especially given such inauspicious beginnings?
The simple answer is relevance. Over its history, UNHCR has been able to demonstrate its relevance to new dynamics and instances of forced migration. Its growth has been incremental and piecemeal. As a result, not only is the size of the organization unrecognizable from its early days, but UNHCR now has a mandate not only for refugees but also in many instances for internally displaced persons, stateless persons, returnees and even some victims of natural disasters.
This growth has also come in the midst of more restrictive policies by states that limit UNHCR's ability to fulfill its core mandate function of protection and solutions for refugees. UNHCR cannot compel states to fulfill their obligations under international law, and UNHCR cannot compel states to offer durable solutions to refugees.
It is also dependent on states, not only for voluntary contributions, but also for permission to be active on their territory. As states in the global North and South become more restrictive and reluctant to offer protection and solutions for refugees, UNHCR is challenged in its ability to fulfill its mandate.
This is not to say that UNHCR is passive and has no independent agenda of its own. UNHCR has influenced international responses to displacement crises through other sorts of powers, such as moral authority and expertise. Despite these abilities, UNHCR operates in a changing world. Its work is affected by dynamics beyond its control, such as the changing nature of conflict, the complexity of climate change, the process of urbanization, broader pressures of migration and the prospect of state fragility, as Steve Cornish mentioned in the earlier panel, all of which are new drivers of displacement and challenges that can frustrate efforts to find solutions.
Given the changing environment within which UNHCR works, it will need to adapt and reinterpret its mandate in the future. How can it navigate the challenges ahead? Let me use my last minute and a half to outline some of these possibilities. UNHCR's history offers many lessons for its approach to future change. At times, in its history, adaptation has been motivated by incentives from states to adapt in particular ways. At other times it has adapted in order to fulfill its original mandate in a changing world. Some decisions at key turning points may broadly be understood as successful and others as failures in terms of their consequences.
The work from this book suggests that there are at least five lessons that could guide the future evolution of UNHCR. First, it needs to do more to empower its staff. The people who represent UNHCR have played a central role in the history of the organization. Recent evaluations have shown that the organization often stifles internal debate and individual initiative. It is crucial that UNHCR is able to create an institutional environment that can nurture staff with the ability to be able to be innovative, creative and politically aware.
Second, it needs to play a leadership role more consistently. In the past, UNHCR has been at its most successful when it has been proactive, self-confident and politically engaged. It has been less successful when it has adopted a more passive or bureaucratic approach.
Third, it needs to uphold its moral authority. While UNHCR needs to be proactive and politically engaged, it need not compromise the moral authority derived from its core mandate by making compromises to meet states' short-term interests.
Fourth, it needs to invest in partnerships. UNHCR can often do more by doing less. Wherever possible, UNHCR should invest in partnerships that seek complementary overlaps with other international institutions, rather than simply trying to expand its own area of work. It is important to recognize that refugees are not just an UNHCR issue but represent a challenge for the entire UN system and international community.
Finally, it must be independent from the interests of states. UNHCR has been at its most successful when it has maintained a degree of independence from states' interests and has had the self-confidence to uphold its mandate and offer a clear and strategic vision for how to implement that vision in a changing world.
In conclusion, as UNHCR prepares to navigate new challenges of displacement, it is important to remember that the organization's history is one of adaptation and change. As the lessons of the past six decades make clear, it is only by learning from its mistakes that UNHCR will be able to fully realize its mandate of protecting refugees and finding a solution to their plight.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Milner, and thank you for sharing your book with us. We certainly will read it with great interest.
Mr. François Audet.
[Translation]
François Audet, Professor, Department of Management and Technology, University of Quebec at Montreal, as an individual: I am testifying today as a research professor and also as a former humanitarian worker. My presentation contains a mix of research results and findings from interviews conducted for this testimony.
My presentation is divided into two sections. I will make sure I respect the time frame. A part of my statement will be made up of observations, and the other will contain recommendations. I will be speaking about two organizations: the UNHCR and UNICEF.
Generally speaking, as an observation, the mission of these two organizations since the Second World War has evolved enormously, and the assessment of their losses —
The Chair: You are speaking very rapidly and it is difficult for the interpreters to follow.
Mr. Audet: I apologize to the interpreters. I am going to speak a bit more slowly. However, I do not want this to be docked from my time.
The Chair: You have 10 minutes at your disposal.
Mr. Audet: I will speak about the observations first, and then go on to the recommendations. Firstly, there are seven observations I would like to share with you briefly. The first — and this is in the same vein as some of professor Milner's statements — relates to the temporary nature of their mission. The humanitarian response or mandate of these organizations is for the short term. Today, we know that the status of refugee has an average duration of 17 years. How can these organizations be given short-term mandates, even if we expect conflicts to end quickly, when we know full well that even when a conflict ends, the consequences last longer than 10 or 20 years? Certain populations will be born, live and die in refugee camps.
The second observation concerns the coherence of the UNHCR mandate, which is to protect refugees. As you mentioned, this is an essential agency. Unfortunately, by also becoming a humanitarian aid agency, in particular to help distribute food, it too often fails in its protection mission, in attempting to preserve its institutional survival and funding. Its mandate, which is the protection of refugees, is too often placed on the back burner.
Thirdly, and this is particularly related to Syria and a large number of conflicts — I will discuss operational paralysis, which has been striking all of the humanitarian organizations in the aftermath of September 2001. In other words, these humanitarian theatres all have as a backdrop the fight against terrorism, which means that the large contemporary humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross no longer have access to the victims. Because of that, they can no longer fulfil their mission and no longer have their raison-d'être.
Fourth, I would like to talk about political will. In my opinion, it is important to avoid all of the taboos. The actions and mandates of these organizations are dependent on the funding power and mandates of the Western countries, the donors, and the UN member countries. In other words, we see in the literature that the means granted to United Nations agencies are in keeping with the interest of the members in wanting to give them a workspace and the power to act.
Fifth are children, specifically, and their needs — I know that your work has focused particularly on that aspect. Both UNHCR and UNICEF, and this has been reliably documented, give particular attention to children in their work. Nevertheless, we see that those whose parents are present, or those who have no particular health problems, receive no distinctive treatment. In order to receive particular support or protection, the child has to be unaccompanied or ill.
The sixth topic is education. If these organizations want to make children their priority, there should in parallel be an offer of quality education in cases of forced displacement, and in refugee camps. Unfortunately, that offer is underfinanced, mediocre or completely absent.
The seventh observation concerns coordination. Competition and the business and entrepreneurial model of these organizations, which are on the lookout for funding, mean that they very often have very little interest in cooperating with other organizations. We see in the case of refugees, in particular, that when the UNHCR determines that a certain population is its responsibility, it then very quickly precludes cooperation with other organizations and eliminates cooperation possibilities, as you were mentioning.
These seven observations lead me to four broad recommendations. Of course, and you understand this, these are very complex situations, and I do not have simple solutions to propose to you.
First, there is the issue of the temporary nature of the action; that is to say that the organizations have short-term mandates, whereas the scenarios playing out are long-term ones. Pilot projects recommend that youngsters be given the possibility of getting out of the camps in order to have access to interesting opportunities outside of them, because when they are forced to remain in refugee camps — this has been well documented and proven — their rights are trampled, and education systems are nonexistent.
Second, we must consider the needs of children who are displaced for long periods of time. We have to improve educational opportunities for them, and they must have access to more than primary education, that is to say they should also have access to secondary education, and perhaps technical training. Too often the educational offer is limited to primary school, because that is what is guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, we know that education contributes to making children productive actors in their host environment or their original one, and we should place greater emphasis on asking for that education in these emergency situations.
The third recommendation pertains to the consistency of mandates. Insofar as I am concerned, I believe that the UNHCR should focus solely on the protection of refugees, as its mandate in fact stipulates, and not on direct aid. Other organizations, NGOs and UNICEF, could then take care of humanitarian assistance, and the UNHCR could limit itself to its protection mandate.
Finally, in fourth place, regarding children, there is a particular clientele which is being forgotten, that of adolescents and youngsters of 12, 18 and 20. A youngster in a refugee camp who is 17, 18 or 19 does not have the same needs as young children or adults, and this means that these young people are often idle and turn to petty crimes — that has been well documented — and they will certainly be the first to be recruited by militias and terrorist groups.
This concludes my presentation. I hope it will contribute to your study and that the interpreters and stenographers did not suffer too much from the speed of my statement.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Audet.
[English]
I have a question for both of you. You have spoken about UNHCR and touched on UNICEF a bit. We all know that boys and girls experience conflict very differently. Sadly girls, and sometimes boys too, face gender-based violence, including sexual assault and early marriage, for example. Boys are more likely to be required to work to support the family or to be recruited into armed groups.
According to your study, how do you see UNHCR and UNICEF responding to these evolving and different needs?
Mr. Milner: It is an excellent question. It's a topic that is quite pressing within UNHCR at the moment. That's the organization I know best, so I will limit my response to that. There's been quite a change over the past 45 years in the way that UNHCR has responded to the differentiated needs between female and male refugees. It has broadly paralleled the debate within the development and humanitarian community on siloing the needs of women as opposed to gender mainstreaming.
It's quite encouraging that over the last six years, UNHCR has piloted a new program of age, gender and diversity mainstreaming. This has tried to ensure that all aspects of UNHCR's work have gender-sensitive protection, such that it's not the responsibility of one or two colleagues in the field to respond to the particular needs of women or gender issues but rather the responsibility of all staff.
This new approach has been piloted in, I believe, 12 or 14 countries with varying success. In some instances where there's strong support from the organization, training opportunities and commitment from the staff, it has gone extremely well. India stands out as a very compelling case of where this approach has resulted in responding not only to the needs of refugee girls and women but also to addressing the male side of gender challenges and the responsiveness and awareness of refugee males towards issues of violence against women, for example. In countries where there has been less commitment from senior leadership of the country and fewer incentives for staff to actually see this work, like in so many examples of global refugee policy, it has been less successful.
The simple answer is that it has been a constant source of evolution in UNHCR's work. The current approach developed at the global level in Geneva is really quite encouraging. It is very nuanced and sensitive to the latest understanding of responding to these kinds of gender issues. Where we have seen the challenge is in the even implementation of this new approach in the 120-plus countries where UNHCR works.
I can point the committee to some evaluations that have compared some of these pilot countries and the points of success or failure. I would say that the three most important points that have come out of that are, first, commitment from senior UNHCR leadership in the country; second, training opportunities; and third, incentive to ensure that staff implement this policy.
[Translation]
Mr. Audet: I do not have much to add. I agree entirely with what has just been said. The main criticism is related to the fact that this program, the AGDM, arrived very late in the history of the UNHCR. It is a tragedy because for each new refugee camp, the problem arises anew. It is an evolving situation and it is a matter of political will at headquarters.
The policies have to be implemented in Canada as elsewhere. There is a policy here, and there has to be a political will for it to be implemented in the field, in the refugee camps, and this involves the capabilities of the project leaders, the heads of mission, and the refugee camps themselves.
[English]
It's a work in progress.
Senator Nancy Ruth: In this training, is there any training for boys and men on the harm they cause? Is there any harm-based education?
Mr. Milner: Yes. The biggest transition in UNHCR's work on sexual and gender-based violence has been to develop programs that not only protect women but also educate men. We have seen this with great success more in the context of the Somali refugee camps in Kenya and the Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania. This goes back to Professor Audet's point about paying attention to that age group of 16-to-21-year-olds. For example, UNHCR found in Tanzania that the rates of sexual and gender-based violence were very high because the males perpetrating this violence fell through all the different programs offered and because idleness bred opportunity, for lack of a better term.
Again, there is such variation in the way that this kind of learning has been spread.
What has been compelling, and it goes back to something Professor Audet said, is that when UNHCR goes into a new situation, it tends to do business as usual. It has a very slow capacity to learn a lesson from Tanzania and apply that directly in Jordan. It's that kind of learning capacity that needs to happen.
The simple answer is that it's part of the training and part of the manual to pay attention to educating boys as much as to educating girls. It is not only to educate in terms of harm afflicted and the impact on communities, but to ensure that there are programs to capture that male population that's often demographically the most likely to perpetuate acts of sexual violence. But it is not consistently applied globally at the level that it should be.
Senator Ataullahjan: I'm looking at your presentation to the Canadian School of Public Service, October of 2008, where you said the scale and nature of the global refugee problem have changed considerably in recent years. The refugee numbers are lower now than a decade ago, but they're increasingly protracted, politicized and complex.
In the same presentation, you mentioned that the average duration of refugees, where it was nine years in 1993, is 18 years today; for the majority of the world's refugees that means living 18 years in limbo.
You further stated that many donor states are reluctant to provide assistance to these long-term refugees' situations and have directed their funding elsewhere. Is that true in the current crisis?
Mr. Milner: Yes. I would be happy to elaborate on that.
Unfortunately, yes, and it goes back to something that Professor Audet mentioned in his presentation. It's this phenomenon of protracted refugee situations. The Syrian crisis changes the numbers somewhat because of the dramatic number of Syrians in exile in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
In 2009, Canadian leadership played a significant role in the UNHCR executive committee's adopting a conclusion on this phenomenon of protracted refugee situations, which included the definition of any refugee population that's been in exile for five or more years with no immediate prospect of a durable solution.
Somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of the world's refugees are in these forgotten protracted refugee situations. Accepted thinking is that the Syrian crisis will be a protracted refugee situation. There's no immediate view of what a durable solution would be once the Syrian crisis reaches its tragic five-year anniversary.
The presentation that I made in 2008 drew on a project that I co-directed with the United Nations University, which looked at 18 different protracted refugee situations to try to understand the causes, the consequences and possible responses. What it found, again going back to the point that Professor Audet made, is that with the end of the Cold War, the changing nature of humanitarian action and certainly in the post 9/11 world, humanitarian action has often been used as a substitute for resolving the root causes of displacement.
What this means is that if we look at situations — Afghans in Pakistan, the Somalis in Kenya, the remaining Karen and Karenni refugees in Thailand — the solution to these displacement crises involves engaging with and rebuilding their country of origin so that sustainable return is a viable option. Historically, in all major refugee situations, this has been an essential part of the puzzle. Even with the Indo-Chinese crisis, which saw 3 million people displaced, 2 million of them were resettled to Western countries, but a million still returned to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
In the case of Central American refugees in the 1980s, with the CIREFCA process, we saw that local integration and repatriation together proved to be very important. We have seen responses to these large protracted refugee situations that are simply focused on prolonged care and maintenance operations. This is largely what we see with the Syrians in Jordan and Lebanon — providing basic life-saving assistance hoping that eventually this crisis will be resolved.
The tragic history of state fragility and the challenges of peace building, especially in the post 9/11 world, are that the prospect of rebuilding states like Somalia and Afghanistan, and in the future Syria, are extremely long-term prospects. What our work on protracted refugee situations has found is they are caused by impasses. They are impasses in the country of origin, but also impasses in the country hosting refugees, where countries are increasingly reluctant to offer refugees opportunities for self-reliance and to find solutions in a local context. Tanzania recently granted citizenship to 162,000 Burundian refugees who have been on its territory since 1972. This is an unparalleled example of a solution for a protracted refugee situation. These are the kinds of situations that need to be understood, encouraged and promoted elsewhere.
The consequences of protracted refugee situations are not only challenges for the human rights of refugees but for the well-being of host communities and for the stability of states and regions.
The response to protracted refugee situations is very much mainstreaming the needs of refugees outside of a humanitarian silo and making it very much part of what we do in terms of development, peace building and political engagement and to find and encourage opportunities for refugees at local levels to be self-reliant so that they are not dependent on international assistance and so that when the opportunity for a durable solution is found they have the skills and abilities to be able to actively engage and pursue those solutions.
The answer for refugees is not long-term, unending care-and-maintenance programs. The answer is very much to engage with them as human beings and as agents who are able to play a role in pursuing their own solution.
Senator Ataullahjan: You mentioned Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as someone who is very familiar with that situation — I know you say 3 million, but they were saying as many as 5 million. Most of those refugees have not gone back to Afghanistan, and they have stayed. It has been a great strain on the local population in every way. There's been a lot of resentment. It has impacted Pakistan, which was already fragile. It had its problems.
Recently the Pakistan government is very keen for those refugees to go back. But when you look at the situation in Afghanistan, most of the refugees do not want to go back, and they have established themselves. They own businesses.
Somehow there has to be a way where the local population can interact with the refugees and find a solution. Most of the people you speak to, they are very upset. They feel that it was relatively peaceful, but since that situation, it is out of their control. I know there are no easy answers.
Mr. Milner: I'm glad, senator, that you raised that case. It goes back to when I was answering Senator Nancy Ruth's question about gender responses and learning from UNHCR. It is exactly this kind of case that highlights the need for UNHCR to be politically engaged, to empower its staff and to show leadership. Something that UNHCR did extremely well, in the case of Pakistan in 2004-05, is that it conducted a census of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. It found that of the 2.1 million that were there at that time, only 18 per cent were not returning to Afghanistan due to a continued fear of persecution. So that meant that 82 per cent of refugees were in Pakistan because of intermarriage, because of community attachment, for economic reasons, because they had started businesses and because they moved back and forth from Afghanistan to Pakistan during the harvest seasons, for example.
This showed a great deal of intelligence from UNHCR in creating an empirical basis where it could then engage in a conversation with Pakistan in terms of if this is the reality for refugees, how do we regulate this population? How do we legalize this population in terms of seeing this as a refugee issue but also as a migration issue, as a refugee issue but also as a development issue?
As part of that dialogue, something that UNHCR started with the Pakistan government is RAHA, Refugee Assistance to Hosting Areas. It's very much in line with what is being proposed with hosting communities in Jordan today. It's how do we ensure that the hosting of refugees doesn't create a burden, whether it's in Jordan or a place like Peshawar where you have a refugee population that receives maybe token, marginal assistance but it's more than what the local population enjoys. How do you not build up resentment from a local population towards refugees? How do you create the precondition at a very local level with police chiefs, mayors, local elders and business communities to create a spirit and climate that are conducive to then having a conversation about giving refugees the right to work?
Unfortunately, with the RAHA program in Pakistan, its funding didn't continue. The UNHCR leadership in Pakistan changed, and it's one of these tragic examples where a senior management of an UNHCR country team who was very politically engaged and aware and savvy was replaced, given the changing context of politics in Pakistan, which I think is imperative to note.
Where UNHCR takes a more passive, bureaucratic role of ticking the boxes and doing what we need to do, these opportunities dwindle. There are these examples of where UNHCR has been very aware and engaged at a very local level of the kinds of quid pro quos that are necessary to create the space and the opportunities for self-reliance for refugees, livelihoods for refugees and ultimately solutions for refugees, but it really does start from an awareness that not all refugees are the same. The needs for all 2.1 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan are not the same. Likewise, the needs for all Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are not the same. It's starting with a much more informed, intelligent and aware understanding of the local context and the diversity of a population and then being creative about the kinds of solutions that can be found given that understanding.
Senator Andreychuk: Supplementary to that, we've tracked for quite some time the refugees. In an African context that I know, they would get resources for education and for minimal standards that they don't have in their own villages if they were go back, so there was a tendency not to want to go back because of that. There was also tension between the villagers who don't have the education and those in the camps.
Am I reading you right, Mr. Milner, that you were saying that there should be a capacity to train these youth to be part of the solution? Is that the political solution you're talking about back in the countries? We keep hearing about Syria, for example, that until the Syrians determine their future, we probably won't have the answers outside. With so many refugees outside the country, well educated in some cases, somewhat educated, et cetera, should we be looking to them as part of the political solution rather than just maintenance? How would we do that without negative consequences to the international institution that houses them?
[Translation]
Mr. Audet: A very quick reply. What I have to say is in the same vein as Professor Milner's statement. I think that your question is relevant and highlights two examples that are unfortunately quite rare, where the UNHCR was able to adapt in an ingenious way and provide support in situations. I think that it often chooses to maintain an artificial system, as your question suggests, which provides superior services which were never seen before and will never be seen again. But this maintains an artificial system, and artificial systems can be found everywhere, even at home. They are not unique to refugee populations.
To get back to Syria in particular, insofar as the transition process is concerned, it is clear that given the duration — and we are talking about decades in the case of Syria — the number of Syrian refugees, and also — since you mention it — education, and the level of local capabilities, there are no other solutions than through this refugee population itself. In any case, the solution is political. The UNHCR is not going to solve the problem, nor the Red Cross, nor the United Nations, nor, unfortunately, Canada either. It is up to the Syrians, as you said, to get organized to find a solution. However, in the meantime, there are massacres, people are dying, and children are being displaced. This population which has managed to get itself out of the disaster, and who is now a refugee population, must be a part of the solution. Otherwise, in this case I think we will simply be maintaining an additional artificial system, whereas we have the opportunity in the Syrian case of being able to, among other things — we see this with Lebanon and Turkey, in particular, which are very open countries — receive refugees and integrate them locally to give them projects for their future, so that they are not in transition zones for decades and decades.
[English]
Mr. Milner: I could add four very specific things that UNHCR can do exactly to respond to this kind of question. This comes from a project that I'm doing right now on the role of refugees in peace-building processes.
If we imagine that there is a track one process of negotiations between parties in a conflict and efforts to bring about dialogue and reconciliation at a track one diplomatic process, at a track two process there is quite a bit that can be done to ensure that refugees are engaged in that process, first and foremost, so that the outcome of any negotiated peace is seen as legitimate by the population that has been displaced by that process. As we have seen, there are opportunities in the Burundian peace process, for example, to identify within refugee camps elected community leaders who can act as representatives or observers in the actual peace talks themselves. That's building a bridge between the refugee population and the formal process.
Apart from that, there are three things that can happen. One we saw, for example, in the case of South Sudanese refugees in Kenya, as there was a move towards reconstruction and independence of South Sudan, was a survey of needs in South Sudan that recognized the dramatic shortage of doctors and nurses and teachers that would be in place. UNHCR was then able to start training programs so that refugees in the camps in Kakuma in northwestern Kenya were trained to be nurses, thereby addressing that need back in their country of origin.
Second, UNHCR has, again in a very piecemeal way, not learning globally from these lessons, started running coexistence programs for the intercommunal tension and conflict that is often at the heart of many of these conflicts that often reproduce themselves in conditions of exile. Refugees learn conflict resolution and coexistence skills that become building blocks on return back to their country of origin.
Finally, and quite importantly, is the process of registration and participation in political processes while in exile. Registration of births is so crucial so that individuals have an identity and registration of voters so that refugees in exile can participate in referenda in post-conflict elections.
These are very simple things that we can ensure are done more systematically. Where they're done well, they make a significant difference in contributing to the well-being of refugees but contributing to a lasting, endurable peace.
Senator Nancy Ruth: In the peace-building processes in the camps, how much attention is paid to the United Nations resolutions like 1325 or all the other ones that deal with women's participation in peace building? And if they're not there, the decisions are not good ones. I'm concerned about it because when you say there are elected representatives from the camps, we are in cultures that may not encourage women's participation at the political level.
Mr. Milner: I'll be very quick because I know Professor Audet would want to say something on this as well. The very simple answer is that it's supposed to be present, but it isn't always. Since 2006, within the UN system, there has been a peace-building commission, which I believe has 10 countries on its agenda right now. This is a very formal UN process of trying to encourage peace building in these processes.
Resolution 1325 is an essential part of the work of this organization in terms of where its top-down peace-building and international agencies are coming in. There are clear requirements in terms of the participation of women.
I see it as more encouraging and durable in situations like the Karenni refugees in Thailand, a very patriarchal society, as we've seen from the ethnographic record.
When I was last in Thailand and met with the Karenni women's organization, they made it clear to me that in terms of changing gender imbalance within their community, what they were able to do would never have been possible if they had remained within Myanmar, Burma, all of this time. In some instances, if the experience of exile, the creation of women's committees and the insistence on female representation on refugee camp committees then translates into a wholesale education of gender equality throughout the camp, then it can be lasting and very successful. Where it's seen as another box you need to tick on your monthly report, then it's tokenistic and doesn't take those deep roots.
Is it there officially? Yes. Is the potential realized in every situation? Unfortunately not.
Mr. Audet: It's quite a case-by-case situation. It's so much top down, that it's quite difficult, especially because it is a case-by-case situation.
[Translation]
In fact, I would say that coexistence and social equilibrium in refugee communities are specific to the circumstances; they have to be examined on a case-by-case basis. It is almost impossible to apply all of the policies, in particular Resolution 13.25, because what we see consistently are cohesive refugee groups who move about in a very homogeneous way, and there are very few opportunities to divide or change that social cohesion, which is very fragile.
To add just a few words, these situations really have to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and notwithstanding the political will that would like to impose them, feminist approaches are unfortunately not often applied.
[English]
Senator Eggleton: There is a lot of discussion about the camps and the services provided or not provided in the camps. However, a vast number of people don't go to the camps but get assimilated into different communities. I understand that is particularly the case in Lebanon. What kind of support do the UN agencies, other organizations or NGOs give to those who aren't in the camps but in the communities? or are those people totally on their own?
[Translation]
Mr. Audet: That is an excellent question, and you are opening the door to the issue of the populations known as "IDPs" or internally displaced persons. The situation in Columbia is an excellent example. There are some 5 million people who have been displaced because of an internal conflict. From a legal perspective, in international relations, as you know, the UNHCR does not have the mandate to support these populations that are within their own territory because, of course, the state itself is the first party responsible for the protection of its population. So, what to do when the state is itself responsible for the human rights violations? And what must be done so that the UNHCR, given the legal dimensions of the issue, can obtain the power to act to help these displaced populations?
This is where the NGOs — you had a few of them here earlier — have an important role to play in supporting these populations, both the internally displaced people and the refugee populations that are not in the camp territory. The camp is a sort of catch-22; it is a dead end. Being admitted to the camp provides advantages, but I think there are not many opportunities there. There are fascinating scenarios and life stories from refugees who, among other things — you were talking about Lebanon, and thus of Syrian refugees — have crossed borders, have are not registered anywhere and may not even be recorded in the displacement statistics, but have found ways of making a life for themselves, thanks to personal networks or simply thanks to individual initiative. In those cases, it is very difficult to take censuses because as Professor Milner mentioned, everything hinges on identifying these people at birth, when possible, or on being able to track the trajectory of these populations who are constantly moving and who all hope to one day return to their host territory.
So these are even more complex scenarios. There is no easy answer, but that is where non-government organizations in particular, with the help of other organizations such as the Red Cross, can offers services to these displaced populations.
[English]
Mr. Milner: The question of internally displaced people is something important that we haven't discussed. Your question is absolutely essential. In my brief introduction, I talked about urbanization being one of these megatrends that are challenging UNHCR. One of those challenges is urbanization of all individuals, not just refugees.
It's interesting in the case of Jordan where we see increasingly that families will split the risk. Some family members will remain in a camp, while others will go to a city to have options available. We see this in Kenya where some Somali refugees remain in the camp, and some are in Nairobi.
In Jordan and Lebanon, we have seen some real innovation in UNHCR's assistance for refugees out of camps in terms of using mobile phone technology to issue vouchers and cash grants. There is a lot of encouragement from what's happening there.
I'll note that this has been a real bugbear for UNHCR over the past 15 years. In 1999, UNHCR had an urban refugee policy in line with the restrictive views of many refugee-hosting states. Countries in the global South, who host 80 per cent of the world's refugees, said that they want refugees in camps. They would not support a policy that said refugees were allowed to live outside the camps.
NGOs and researchers played a very active role in critiquing UNHCR's policy. It issued a new policy on protection in urban areas in 2009, which presents a real demonstration of how policy can change. In 2014, the UNHCR issued a new policy on out-of-camp livelihood opportunities for refugees, which includes a challenging proviso: Refugees should be encouraged to pursue livelihood opportunities outside camps where local conditions allow. It gives a trump card to refugee-hosting countries and local communities to say, "This is not an environment where it allows refugees to be outside camps."
We can tinker on the margins in terms of how we advocate for those who live a clandestine existence in a place like Nairobi to have an opportunity for protection, assistance and solutions. It speaks to the idea that a policy framework exists so that we can think much more creatively not only for the well-being of refugees outside camps but also how the presence of those refugees can contribute to development and capacity-building in these border areas. However, it's predicated on local willingness to see those activities take place.
The Chair: The situation in Nairobi is tragic. People have been forced to go into camps and very backward circumstances. I don't have the ability to ask the question now because another meeting is to convene here.
I thank both of you for giving us a lot to think about. There are so many other questions we want to ask, but maybe we'll find another way.
(The committee adjourned.)