Human rights worker calls on female foreign ministers for help
OTTAWA — Razia Sultana has hope for her people, despite the fact tens of thousands have been tortured and raped in what the United Nations has deemed a genocide.
Sultana is Rohingya. She works as a lawyer and human rights activist in the refugee camps of Bangladesh, where over 725,000 Rohingya Muslims are now staying after fleeing extreme violence from the Myanmar militia.
The vast majority of those in the camps are women and children, many of whom were gang raped and tortured and lost family members in brutal mass slaughters.
But many of them still want to go home to Myanmar.
“They want to go back, because that is their life, their ancestral land. But they need a safe zone,” Sultana said. “Canada is a most powerful country now in the world. They have authority. They can push the Myanmar government (through) international lobbying.”
The House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion Thursday to recognize the crimes against the Rohingya as a genocide. The motion, put forward by Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, also endorsed the findings of a United Nations fact-finding mission outlining how crimes against humanity have been committed by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya and other minorities.
She wants Canada to use its influence to advocate for the creation of a safe zone within Myanmar to allow the women in refugee camps to return without fear of further violence.
Sultana plans to take this message to a meeting of women foreign ministers being held in Montreal on Friday and Saturday.
The meeting will draw together not only 19 female ministers, but also a group of 10 women who have been internationally recognized for their work in furthering human rights causes — including Sultana. Together, they will discuss international security, feminist foreign policy and aid as well as combating sexual and gender-based violence.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Federica Mogherini, high representative of the European Union, are cohosting the meeting.
The gathering is timely for people like Sultana who have been working to shine a light on the atrocities suffered by Rohingya refugees.
Earlier this week, the UN human rights council released a comprehensive report on its fact-finding mission on three states in Myanmar.
The 440-page report documents, in graphic detail, the systematic targeting of civilian Rohingya by the military, including mass gang rape, sexual slavery and the razing of hundreds of villages.
The report calls for Myanmar’s military leaders to be investigated and prosecuted for genocide and war crimes.
Earlier this year, former Liberal leader Bob Rae, Canada’s special envoy for the Rohingya crisis, issued a report urging Canada to commit humanitarian funds and to take a lead role in prosecuting crimes against humanity.
Canada has condemned the violence and committed $300million over the next three years to support displaced and other vulnerable populations.
There have been calls for the Trudeau government to revoke an honorary Canadian citizenship given to Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in
2007, but the government has so far refused to state whether it is considering this measure.
Freeland’s office says the new UN report’s findings offer further evidence of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the Rakhine State, with the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war by Myanmar’s security forces being “particularly unacceptable.” Canadian officials will discuss such mechanisms — such as a dedicated tribunal for investigating and prosecuting war crimes —next week at the UN General Assembly.