Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy

The hostilities in Iraq have led to the forced displacement of more than 4.7 million people. The conflict has been marked by serious violations of international humanitarian law, including sexual violence.

Thousands of women and girls—particularly from the Yazidi minority—have been abducted and have suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of Daesh. Those who escape must overcome serious injuries and trauma.

With Canada’s help, 29 community centres set up in refugee camps and communities in Kurdistan and other regions are meeting the urgent needs of thousands of women and girls every year.

At the centres, survivors of sexual violence receive emergency care from gynecologists and mental health specialists. They get clothing and hygiene items. They have access to reserved areas, where therapeutic activities help them overcome their physical and psychological wounds. Their children can play in safe areas.

The workers at these centres also help the women reintegrate into their families and communities. Their return is difficult, especially when they are pregnant or are bringing with them children born during captivity. But with the cooperation of Yazidi religious authorities, who encourage people to accept them, many survivors have been reintegrated in their communities.

For some, it is the start of healing. For others, more must be done.

Cases of serious sexual abuse, 90 percent of which have been committed against Yazidi women, are referred to a new, specialized centre in the city of Duhok. There, enhanced services are available, including psychiatric care and legal assistance.

Canada’s multi-year assistance enables its partners to support these women in their return to a normal life.

Women make up more than two thirds of the agricultural workforce in Senegal and are responsible for over 80 percent of food production. However, they have limited access to land and to adapted technologies and are more affected by poverty and malnutrition.

Women’s workload in the home limits their ability to pursue money-making activities like beekeeping. But in Saré Souma, a village in Casamance, a women’s advocacy organization has taken up this challenge.

With Canada’s support, the women obtained innovative hives, specialized equipment and a fully equipped well. They learned new honey harvesting and processing techniques. They were also trained in leadership and in administrative and financial management.

Their hard work and tenacity have made their region a centre of honey production in Senegal.

Buoyed by success, the women have expanded the project to include mangos, cashews and forest fruits. In all, 4,560 women have gained knowledge that lets them use better-performing, forest-friendly agricultural technologies, such as improved dryers and alternative fuels.

In just a few years, the woman farmers in Casamance have diversified and increased their production and income. Some have created jobs, put their children through school and acquired better-built houses. In Saré Souma, women financed the rehabilitation of the communal well and bought desks for the school.

Besides the greater financial autonomy their business success has given them, these women have acquired a more equal social position in their families and communities. They are now active within regional agri-food organizations and municipal politics.

Climate change is increasing water scarcity—particularly in Cambodia, hit hard by drought. In periods of shortage, unequal access to water is a source of conflict between women and men. While women use water mostly in the household, men use it to generate income through cash crops and livestock.

An initiative begun in 2009 and financed by the Canada-United Nations Development Programme Climate Change Adaptation Facility has resulted in Cambodians better managing water. With the installation of cisterns and community ponds, more than 3,400 households in 65 villages are collecting rainwater and easing their dry-season water shortages.

After training in climate-change resilient farming, the community’s women started vegetable gardens. Year-round access to rainwater has allowed them to augment their incomes by selling vegetables in local markets. The gardens have diversified diets and improved food security and health in these households, more than half of which are led by single mothers.

To ensure the water is shared equally, and thanks to a partnership with Cambodia’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the women have also received training in managing the resource. They have been elected to water-use groups traditionally dominated by men, letting them draw attention to their needs and show their leadership—reducing tensions and improving relations between the community’s men and women.

Since beginning to grow and sell their vegetables, the women are listened to and respected more in their families and villages.

In the Middle East and North Africa, more women than men attend university. Yet their participation in the labour market is less than half the world average. They hold only 18 percent of parliamentary seats. Few women rise to positions of influence where they can participate in decisions that most affect the lives of women and girls.

In politics, woman representatives are catalysts of change. The leadership of women sparks reforms that benefit everyone: health and sanitation services, gender equality laws, parental leave and elimination of sexual and gender-based violence.

Canada wants to help equip women in Arab countries for more active roles in politics, at the heads of companies and in other decision-making spheres.

Training will be offered to more than 9,000 women in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. These women will acquire new key leadership and management skills, and they will be introduced to journalism and public speaking. They will be able to learn how their region’s political systems work.

Women who are already leaders in their fields will be able to become trainers and mentors who will encourage other women, especially young women, to become agents of change.

Communities also need to value women’s involvement in public affairs. That is why seminars and meetings on gender equality and the political rights of women will be held in the three countries, including in rural areas, with the participation of about 3,000 men.

As of 2016, 46 national parliaments had more than 30 percent women in their lower or single houses.

Noralba Guarín fled FARC guerilla recruiters twice. The first time, she was 13. The second time, a few years later, she was living in Cartagena with her husband. They refused and her husband was found dead shortly afterwards. Noralba was pregnant with her first child.

Over 7 million Colombians were displaced during the country’s more than six decades of armed conflict. Despite the signing of a peace accord in 2016, insecurity is rampant. One of the challenges: removing the thousands of anti-personnel mines in the country.

“When I was little,” Noralba recalls, “I was told to be careful when I walked outside or I’d get blown to bits.”

Landmines have killed over 12,400 people in Colombia since 1990. Much of the country’s cropland and many of its roads and schools have been abandoned for fear of mines.

Canada supports Colombia in its peace process, including through humanitarian mine clearance by a local organization in 10 municipalities. The mine clearers are recruited locally.

Women rarely do such work in Colombian society, but Noralba was encouraged to apply during a training session held in the public square in A‎rgelia.

The organization provides men and women, including veterans, with fair working conditions. It gives women management positions and visible roles in their work with residents to find mined areas.

Noralba is helping to restore peace. She is creating safe zones that restore access to farmlands, markets and public services.

This project will help 60,000 displaced Colombians return to their homes and will benefit over 27,000 people in some of the country’s poorest communities.