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A coalition of Canada’s leading humanitarian NGOs is calling on the Liberal government to back up its talk of international leadership in empowering women by contributing $500 million over the next three years towards setting up a global fund dedicated… »

A coalition of Canada’s leading humanitarian NGOs is calling on the Liberal government to back up its talk of international leadership in empowering women by contributing $500 million over the next three years towards setting up a global fund dedicated to education programs for girls.

International NGOs hope to raise $1.3 billion US over the next three years to support education for 3.7 million children in crisis, with a special emphasis on educating girls, said David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada.

The funding request follows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement last month that investing in girls’ education, especially in crisis situations, is a vital part of achieving gender equality, and will be one of his key priorities at the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec later this week.

“If the world needs more Canada, the G7 is our opportunity to deliver it,” Morley said. “If we want to turn feminist talk into walk, now is the time.”

(click to listen to the interview with David Morley)

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In addition to such well-known NGOs as Plan International Canada, Results Canada, Right to Play, Save the Children, UNICEF Canada and World Vision the funding request enjoys strong grassroots support from ordinary Canadians, Morley said.

A petition to drum up support for over 75 million children who are currently out of school in nearly three dozen crises and conflict, launched in April by Fatuma Omar Ismail, a former Somali refugee who is now a University of Toronto student, has garnered 160,000 signatures.

“Life hasn’t always been easy. I was one of the lucky ones to get a chance at a better life and I am very grateful for all the opportunities I was given,” said Ismail. “While education saved my life, far too many children spend their lives in limbo and are not getting the education they deserve. It is time we do something about it. This is Canada’s chance to lead on what is right.”

Girls sit next to a riddled wall in a school yard in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria May 24, 2016. (Bassam Khabieh/REUTERS)

Investing in education for girls, who are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys during times of crises, can play an important part in breaking the cycle of violence and conflict that their countries are facing, Morley said.

“We know that educating girls is a way to ensure that children that are eventually born to them will be healthier, that they will participate more in the economy, and that they will not suffer in the same from violence and early marriage,” Morley said.

Humanitarian and development agencies have discussed the issue with the federal government, he said.

“We know that the commitment is there but we don’t know what the exact dollars are going to be,” Morley said.

Providing opportunities for girls and women to access and complete at least 12 years of education, from their early years through to the end of secondary, including technical and vocational education and training, was one of the key objectives agreed upon during the meeting of G7 Development Ministers in Whistler over the weekend.

Ottawa is pushing for exemptions for Canadian steel and aluminum producers ahead of Friday’s deadline that could see Washington slap punishing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports into the United States, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday. Speaking to… »

Ottawa is pushing for exemptions for Canadian steel and aluminum producers ahead of Friday’s deadline that could see Washington slap punishing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports into the United States, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters following her trip to Washington Freeland said she discussed several times the issue of aluminum and steel tariffs, as well as NAFTA, during her meeting Tuesday in Washington with Trump’s trade czar Robert Lighthizer.

“Canada considers it frankly absurd that we would in any way be considered to be a national security threat to the United States,” she said of the tariff threat, which comes under Sec. 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act.

“We are probably the closest ally of the United States. We are partners in NATO, we are partners in NORAD. Canada is by U.S. law part of the U.S. defence industrial base.”

(click to listen to Chrystia Freeland's press conference)

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Also when it comes to trade in steel and steel products, the U.S. has a surplus in trade with Canada, Freeland said.

“I would like to absolutely assure Canadians, particularly those that work in the steel and aluminum industries, that the government is absolutely prepared to and will defend Canadian industries and Canadian jobs. We will respond appropriately.”

Canada pushes back at Trump’s linking of steel and aluminium tariffs to ‘fair NAFTA’

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister’s Office revealed that on Tuesday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pushed for an exemption on Canadian steel and aluminum imports to the United States during his phone call with Vice-President Mike Pence.

Nevertheless, Freeland left Washington without any firm guarantees that Canada will be exempted from tariffs.

Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are also working to get a deal on a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement in time for the current iteration of the U.S. Congress, and ahead of what’s expected to be a turning-point election in Mexico on July 1.

Freeland said while the government doesn’t want to get boxed in by deadlines imposed by the U.S. congressional calendar, Ottawa remains optimistic that a deal is within reach.

“We are very intensely engaged,” Freeland said. “We think a win-win-win outcome is absolutely possible for all three countries. Having said that, what Canada is looking for is a good not any deal.”

With files from The Canadian Press

The recent arrest of a prominent Canadian aid worker on suspicion of child sexual abuse in Nepal points to a critical need for fundamental reforms in the humanitarian aid community to protect vulnerable children and women from sexual predators, says an expert on gender-based violence and ending child sex abuse.

Peter Dalglish, who helped found the charity Street Kids International and has worked for decades for a number of humanitarian agencies, including UN Habitat in Afghanistan and the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response in Liberia, has been charged with sexually abusing children in Nepal, authorities in the Himalayan country said Monday.

Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau chief Pushkar Karki said Dalglish, 60, was arrested in April at his home with two Nepalese boys aged 12 and 14 after weeks of investigation. His case is being heard by a court in Kavre, a town near Kathmandu.

Police allege children were lured with a promise of education and foreign travel before they were sexually abused.

Dalglish, a recipient of Order of Canada for his humanitarian work, denies the allegations, which have not been proven in a court of law yet. He faces up to 13 years in prison if convicted.

Canadian authorities are aware of the arrest of a Canadian citizen in Nepal, Global Affairs spokesperson Philip Hannan said in an email to CBC News.

"Consular services are being provided," Hannan said, adding that "due to the provisions of the Privacy Act, no further information on this specific case can be disclosed."

A perfect cover for a paedophile

A Rohingya refugee boy carries water in the Kutupalong refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh March 22, 2018. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/REUTERS)

Lori Handrahan, a veteran humanitarian worker and the author of Epidemic: America's Trade in Child Rape, said international humanitarian NGOs present a perfect cover for paedophile seeking access to large numbers of vulnerable children.

“When there is an earthquake in Nepal or an earthquake in Haiti or a tsunami in Asia, a humanitarian disaster or a man-made conflict like South Sudan, you have a huge population of vulnerable children who are basically dispensable,” Handrahan told Radio Canada International in a phone interview from Washington D.C.

“So a man who gets a job with Save the Children or the Red Cross or Oxfam or a UN agency and goes to work in a humanitarian response can very easily rape and molest, and abuse many-many children, who have no way to report the abuse, have nobody protecting them.”

(click to listen to the full interview with Lori Handrahan)

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Need to monitor humanitarian workers

A woman walks carrying a suitcase on her head next to an Oxfam sign in Corail, a camp for displaced people of the 2010 earthquake, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, February 13, 2018. (Andres Martinez Casares/REUTERS)

Handrahan, who has more than two decades of experience working with international NGOs in Central Asia, Africa and the Balkans, said Dalglish’s case raises troubling questions about the willingness of international humanitarian NGOs to police themselves.

“It’s actually very easy to monitor your own employees,” Handrahan said.

Research shows that most of the predatory activity happens on the physical premises owned or operated by the humanitarian NGOs and then is shared using workplace electronic communications networks and equipment, Handrahan said.

“All every humanitarian agency has to do and must do is install very robust monitoring software and monitor the electronic infrastructure,” she said.

Similar to a home alarm where you can designate a call list of people who would get contacted when your alarm goes off when you’re away,

It’s one of the least known stories in one of the world’s most underreported conflicts.

Yet thousands of people have been killed and about 1.5 million people, most of them women and children, have been displaced over the last two years by the conflict in the Kasai region of the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The United Nations has been warning for months that flaring political and ethnic tensions in the Kasai region pose a grave risk to civilians.

“Tensions remain high between different ethnic groups, threatening to plunge the region into new violence,” UNHCR spokesperson Aikaterini Kitidi told reporters in Geneva in March.

Rachel Logel Carmichael, head of humanitarian affairs at Save the Children Canada, said the charity is particularly concerned by the impact of the conflict on children.

“We have seen an enormous number of children who have been separated from their families,” Logel Carmichael said in a phone interview from the Kasai Oriental region of the DRC. “We have also identified over 1,400 cases of sexual violence in the last several years and the majority of those cases are children.”

(click to listen to the full interview with Rachel Logel Carmichael)

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Projects for victims of conflict

Congolese children used in armed conflicts and former child soldiers receive psycho-social support at the Centre for Orientation and Transit (COT) for Children associated with militias in Mbuji Mayi, Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 14, 2018. Picture taken March 14, 2018. (Thomas Mukoya /REUTERS)

Logel Carmichael, who is visiting projects funded by Save the Children Canada in the Kasai region, said over the last several days she had a unique opportunity to speak with some of the children who have experienced unimaginable violence.

“For example, yesterday I had an opportunity to meet with a boy who had been abducted by the militia and forced to live and fight with them for a three-month period,” Logel Carmichael said.

The boy, whose identity cannot be revealed for security reasons, explained in detail how he was abducted from his village and talked about some of the rituals and indoctrination the abductees were subjected to, Logel Carmichael said.

The rookie child-soldiers were told to eat certain animal skins or had their skins tattooed to protect them from enemy bullets, the boy said.

Rachel Logel Carmichael (right), participates in a meeting with a former child soldier and his grandmother in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo courtesy of Save the Children)

The boy was able to escape the militia that kidnapped him during a firefight and hide in the bush for some time until he found his grandmother’s family, Logel Carmichael said.

“He has been very traumatised by the experience he’s had,” she said.

Save the Children Canada funds several programs that focus on children who have been separated from their families during their displacement and children who had suffered from sexual violence, Logel Carmichael said.

“The main support that we provide to them relates to psychological support as means to help them address some of those traumatic experiences,” Logel Carmichael said.

Children fleeing DR Congo conflict to Uganda report widespread rape

The funding for these programs comes from the government of Canada and the Humanitarian Coalition, an umbrella group of Canadian humanitarian groups, she said.

Unending series of crises

Internally displaced Congolese women carry their belongings as they walk to the market in Kaniki-Kapangu village near Mwene Ditu in Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 15,

Authorities in the Maritimes province of New Brunswick have put residents of several communities in the St. John River basin on high alert due to rising flood waters, especially downstream from Fredericton.

The Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) in New Brunswick says residents of Jemseg, Gagetown, Hampstead, Belleisle, Grand Bay-Westfield, Quispamsis, Oak Bay and Saint John, as well as smaller communities in these respective regions, should be on high alert and ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice due to rising floodwaters that could surpass record-setting water levels in 1973.

“We’re looking at the worst flood in 50 years,” EMO spokesperson Geoffrey Downey told Radio Canada International. “There is a number of communities along the river, all of them south of Fredericton right now where the river is rising.”

(click to listen to the interview with Geoffrey Downey)

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A man paddles in front of a flooded home on Grand Lake, N.B. as floodwaters continue to rise from the Saint John River on Tuesday, May 1, 2018. (Darren Calabrese/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The water levels on the northern stretch of St. John River between Edmundston and Fredericton remain very high but stable, Downey said.

“In the southern part of the St. John River basin the river is rising and is scheduled to break probably some flood records if it hasn’t done so already,” Downey said.

The city of Saint John issued a voluntary evacuation notice Tuesday evening for residents near Westfield Road, the Randolph Bridge, Beach and Ragged Point roads, as well as any isolated areas along the St. John River within city limits.

The notice affects an estimated 1,900 people.

Local residents head to check on their house surrounded by the waters of the St. John River in Fredericton, N.B. on Sunday, April 29, 2018. Swollen rivers across New Brunswick continued to rise over the weekend, flooding streets and properties and forcing people from their homes in at least four communities. (Andrew Vaughan/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

"I just urge people to heed the warnings and know that it is very difficult to get people out in the middle of the night ... it can be quite dangerous for first responders," said Saint John Mayor Don Darling.

Water levels along the Saint John River are expected to continue to rise through the week, isolating homes and leading to further road closures, Downey said.

NB Power has also turned off electricity to about 104 customers for safety reasons.

Downey said more than 30 homes had been evacuated so far, affecting about 100 people.

That number is expected to rise around Saint John, he said.

“Right now what we are telling everyone who lives from Maugerville down to Saint John is to be on high alert,” Downey said. “If they’re used to experiencing flooding, it’s going to happen again. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”

A man carries a bag of clothing before leaving his home as floodwaters from the Saint John River continue rising in Grand Lake, N.B. on Wednesday, May 2, 2018. (Darren Calabrese/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Downey urged residents to empty their basements, get out all the valuable possessions, take their pets, and have a backpack ready with medications, clothing and identification to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

Water levels were at about five metres in Saint John and could reach 6.6 metres by Sunday, exceeding the 2008 flood level by over a meter, he said.

EMO says people in southern regions of the Saint John River basin should expect similar or worse conditions than previous floods in communities stretching from Jemseg, Gagetown, Hampstead, Oak Point south to Quispamsis.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, is slamming a proposal by the leader of the largest separatist party in Quebec to build a fence along a section of the Quebec-New York border used by asylum seekers to cross into Canada.

Parti Quebecois Leader Jean-Francois Lisee told reporters before a PQ caucus meeting the fence should go up at Roxham Road in Hemmingford, near the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle crossing, about 60 kilometres south of Montreal.

“We have the best known irregular road in the world,” Lisee said. “We have several good fence builders in Quebec, so we’re spoiled for choice.”

The PQ leader said asylum seekers have the right to turn up at the border but should do so at regular crossings in British Columbia, Ontario or New Brunswick so they are treated “humanely” and are more evenly distributed across the country.

When asked who would pay for the fence, Lisee quipped, “the Mexicans.”

“#Canada upholds basic principles of law & humanity at #Roxham #Quebec by allowing people crossing irregularly (and not illegally) to claim #asylum,” Jean-Nicolas Beuze, UNHCR representative in Canada, said in a Twitter reply to Lisee. “@JFLisee’s call to close Roxham is legally & morally wrong + practically impossible (9,000 km).”

#Canada upholds basic principles of law & humanity at #Roxham #Quebec by allowing people crossing irregularly (and not illegally) to claim #asylum.@JFLisee’s call to close Roxham is legally & morally wrong + practically impossible (9,000 km).

We stand #WithRefugees - do you? https://t.co/UbV2MzBXCn

— Jean-Nicolas Beuze (@jnbeuze) April 25, 2018

Later, after several media reported his remarks, Lisee took to Twitter to nuance his comments.

He then held another scrum after the caucus meeting and said Roxham Road should be blocked off “with a sign, a cedar hedge or a police officer” but only after asylum seekers have been told they can go elsewhere.

Reminded he had earlier used the word “fence,” Lisee said he meant “a small fence similar to the type found in schools.”

Canada is coping well

Waves of refugee claimants have arrived in Canada following threats by the U.S. government to oust them. (Charles Contant/CBC)

There is no need for a fence, Beuze said in a phone interview with Radio Canada International. There have been only about 20,000 irregular border crossings into Canada in 2017, he said.

(click to listen to the interview with Jean-Nicolas Beuze)

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"We have seen over the last year that the RCMP and the border authorities have been able to absorb this number and process those arriving, including through irregular manner, in a very efficient and effective manner, upholding the principle of law and morality," he said.

Beuze said the situation is closely tied to the so-called Third Safe Country agreement between Canada and the U.S., which forces asylum seekers to claim asylum in the first country they land in.

A large part of asylum seekers indicated to UNHCR that it was easier for them to obtain a U.S. visa, but that their final destination was always Canada, Beuze said.

"We have to understand when you're fleeing persecution or bombs falling on your house, you take the first door which is open," Beuze said. "If it happens to be an American visa, you take the American visa even if your intention is to come to Canada."

In addition, the Immigration Refugee Board of Canada, an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that hears asylum requests, grants asylum in nearly 60 per cent of all cases, which shows that most of the refugee claims are well-founded, he added.

Quebec says its resources are stretched

Asylum seekers wait to be transported to a processing centre after enter...

One out of ten children fleeing a vicious flare up of fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) say they were raped during their journey to Uganda, according to a new assessment by Save the Children.

More 73,000 refugees have fled the gruesome and escalating conflict in DRC to Uganda, including nearly 2,800 unaccompanied or separated children since the beginning of this year, according to the charity.

An overwhelming majority - some 77.5 per cent - are women and children.

“The conflict in DRC is one of the world’s forgotten crises,” said in a statement Johnson Byamukama, Save the Children’s Emergency Response Director in Uganda. “We see child refugees arriving in Uganda every day in desperate need. Every one of them has a horrific story to tell, including of rape, of parents being killed, of witnessing extreme violence.”

The assessment by Save the Children, based on interviews of 132 refugee children aged 10 to 17, found that hunger was the biggest issue, affecting eight in 10 children fleeing the eastern Ituri region of DRC, said Rachel Logel Carmichael, the charity’ head of humanitarian affairs in Canada.

(click to listen to the full interview with Rachel Logel Carmichael)

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Surviving sickness and violence

Mave Grace, 11, who had part of her arm chopped off by militiamen when they attacked the village of Tchee, stands in an Internally Displaced Camp in Bunia, Ituri province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, April 12, 2018. According to witnesses, militiamen killed her pregnant mother, her three brothers and injured her sister, Racahele-Ngabausi. (Goran Tomasevic/REUTERS)

More than half of children said they were affected by sickness along the way, and a quarter of children interviewed said they were assaulted by armed groups as they fled, Logel Carmichael said.

Having walked for days, refugees are primarily entering Uganda via Lake Albert on makeshift boats, a dangerous crossing that has already proved fatal for "several" people, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

“As you can imagine those who have arrived on the Uganda side there is quite a bit of stress and trauma from that journey,” Logel Carmichael said.

Fighting in Ituri has involved the Hema cattle herders and the Lendu farmers who have a long history of violence over access to land.

UNHCR Babar Baloch said at a briefing in Geneva in March that armed men are reported to be attacking villages, looting and burning down houses, indiscriminately killing civilian populations and kidnapping young men and boys.

Separated from families

Rachele-Ngabausi, aged two, injured by militiamen when they attacked the village of Tchee, sits in an Internally Displaced Camp in Bunia, Ituri province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, April 12, 2018. According to witnesses, militiamen killed her pregnant mother, her three brothers and chopped off part of her sister's arm. (Goran Tomasevic/REUTERS)

“One of the concerns for Save the Children is cases of the children who have been separated from their families or who are crossing the border on their own,” Logel Carmichael said. “So we ensure that in our programming on the Uganda side of the border that we’re addressing the specific needs of unaccompanied and separated children.”

These children are put in foster care provided by other refugees, but ultimately the goal is to reunite the children with their families, she said.

Another concern is the lack of services available to victims of sexual violence, Logel Carmichael said.

“We certainly must commend the government of Uganda for opening its doors to refugees in this area and across the country, but this is an area that whilst there were refugee camps they’re not a lot of ser...

As humanitarian agencies in Bangladesh race against the clock to prepare one of the world’s largest refugee camps for the onslaught of the upcoming monsoon season, they are calling for more support from international donors such as Canada to scale up their lifesaving work.

The United Nation’s International Organization for Migration estimates that at least 150,000 Rohingya in the community of Cox’s Bazar face life-threatening risks from landslides and floods, and thousands more are at risk of disease and being cut off from assistance.

The United Nations’ joint response plan launched last month calls for $951 million US to assist 1.3 million people, including 884,000 Rohingya refugees and 336,000 host community members.

The UN says it needs urgent funding to meet life-saving and acute humanitarian needs of refugees as well as affected host communities.

David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada, said the situation in the camps and in the host communities is extremely serious.

“It’s a horrific situation and Canada has a chance to lead,” Morley said in a phone interview from Dhaka, following his visit to the Cox’s Bazar area near the border with Myanmar.

(click to listen to the full interview with David Morley)

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Vulnerable to landslides

A Rohingya refugee boy carries water in the Kutupalong refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh March 22, 2018. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/REUTERS)

Usually, humanitarian agencies prefer to set up camps in relatively flat places but the camps around Cox’s Bazar have sprung up on a hilly terrain that is prone to landslides and flash floods, Morley said.

“We know that over the next few weeks the monsoon rain will come so we’re very fearful that that’s going to be another disaster,” Morley said.

Humanitarian agencies helping Rohingyas brace for devastating monsoon rains

The money raised by the appeal will go to respond to food and nutrition needs, water and sanitation, and health and various other sectors, said Dipayan Bhattacharyya, the World Food Programme’s Deputy Country Director in Bangladesh, who was in Ottawa earlier this week for meetings with Global Affairs Canada officials.

Bhattacharyya said the densely populated Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, which has become the fourth largest city in Bangladesh, is particularly vulnerable to landslides, flooding and hurricane-strength winds brought by tropical cyclones.

(click to listen to the full interview with Dipayan Bhattacharyya)

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'Devoid of any vegetation' and densely populated

Rohingya refugee children fly improvised kites at the Kutupalong camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on December 10, 2017. (Damir Sagolj/REUTERS)

The camp has about 680,000 people crammed into an area of about 14 square kilometres, giving it a population density of about 50,000 per square kilometre, Bhattacharyya said.

For comparison, Ottawa has a population density of about 400 people per square kilometre.

“Just imagine 400 per square kilometre in Ottawa and 50,000 per square kilometre in this Kutupalong mega-camp,” Bhattacharyya said.

“This entire area is devoid of any vegetation, it’s an undulating surface, so essentially this soil, which is, essentially, completely exposed and any normal rainfall can already cause a very difficult situation there.”

The area around Cox’s Bazar receives pretty high levels of rainfall during monsoon season, Bhattacharyya said. In addition, in the pre-monsoon months in April and May and the post-monsoon period in October and November, the area gets battered by tropical cyclones, he added.

Working to reinforce the camp

In #Bangladesh,