Last October, Hamas militants launched an attack against Israel, killing more than 1,100 people and taking 250 hostages. The ensuing war has destroyed more than half of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza and nearly all its health, education, and, power-generating infrastructure. Overcrowding, displacement, and insufficient humanitarian aid have led to starvation and the spread of infectious diseases, such as polio. The Gaza Ministry of Health has estimated the death toll at more than 41,000, although researchers disagree as to the accuracy of the number, and some say it could be higher.
Less reported has been the impact of this destruction on Palestinian women, including those who are pregnant and nursing mothers. Now a group of organizations, led by the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto and the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, are heading to Geneva to bring this issue to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Committee.
TVO Today speaks with James Yap, acting director of the U of T program, and Anjli Parrin, director of the U of C’s clinic, about their submission to the CEDAW committee — and why they are urging the UN to hold Canada to account.
TVO Today: You have written that Canada “espouses a foreign policy that inflicts grievous extraterritorial harm on women and girls.” What does this look like in the context of Gaza?
James Yap: Canada, despite various statements from the government, continues to allow the export of arms and Canadian-made arms components that are ultimately destined for Israel, where they have been used by Israeli forces in military operations that cause great harm to women and girls in a very gendered way. The UN has described this as a war on women.
In our report, what we look at specifically is the impact of Israel’s military operations in Gaza on the provision of maternal health care, which is an issue that has not received as much attention as many of the other atrocities that have occurred. We are hoping to draw the attention of the international community to the impact that not just this conflict, but armed conflict in general, has on the rights of women to maternal health care.
Anjli Parrin: Exactly as James says, there is a generalized context of massive violations to the rights of women. You’re seeing direct attacks: examples include incidents of women being directly targeted and coming in with significant injuries. But it’s also through indirect violations. This means infectious diseases, overcrowding, dehydration, lack of sanitary conditions, famine-like conditions that are causing knock-on effects on the health of women and girls, particularly in terms of gynecological, obstetric, and reproductive violations.
We’re seeing fertility services, at least in one instance, directly targeted, women who are trying to get pregnant struggling to gain the levels of weight that they would need to have a normal pregnancy, and women giving birth without access to epidurals or other forms of basic health care. We are also seeing huge postpartum violations: women with cesarean sections having to leave the hospital just hours after their operation or unable to get clean drinking water, baby milk, and formula. That then leads to further continuous impacts of this conflict. And, of course, this is all being done with the support of Canadian arms, either directly or indirectly.
James Yap (left) is acting director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto (Courtesy of James Yap); Anjli Parrin is director of the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. (Courtesy of Anjili Parrin)
TVO Today: To this end, you’ve written that a state’s human-rights obligations do not end at its borders and have cited Canada’s failure to meet its human-rights obligations “with respect to the extraterritorial impacts of its multinational corporations” in particular. What, in practical terms, would it mean for the federal government to address these impacts?
Yap: The issue here is that, although the government has said that they’ve halted the issuance of permits to export new arms to Israel directly, the fact is that the majority of arms exports to Israel from Canada go through the U.S. — particularly in the form of parts and components that are then integrated into larger weapons systems that then go to Israel. There are also cases where the U.S. government buys arms directly from a manufacturer in Canada and then just turns around and flips them to Israel. For instance, there was a recent announcement from the U.S. that they planned to purchase $60 million of mortar ammunition from a company in Quebec and then turn around and send them over to Israel.
The reason this can happen is that there is a major loophole where arms exports from Canada to the U.S. aren’t subject to any export controls whatsoever. Normally, to export arms to another country, one would have to get a permit for the export of those arms. But anything that an exporter can’t send to Israel could, in theory, then just as easily be exported to the U.S. without the requirement for an additional permit and sent onwards to Israel. So there’s little point in stopping direct arms exports to Israel if they can just be rerouted through the U.S.
In order to address this problem, the federal government would have to first impose some sort of export controls on all arms sent to the U.S. to ensure they’re not being forwarded to a third state that risks using them to commit serious violations of international human-rights law. They could also seek assurances, either from companies that are exporting or receiving these arms or from the U.S. government, that these weapons, parts, or components will not be exported to Israel. Failing that, they can also impose an arms embargo on parts and components that have a clear risk of going on to Israel.
Parrin: It’s important to note that this is a requirement under international human-rights law, including the Arms Trade Treaty, as well as Canadian domestic law. Part of what we’re asking is Canada to follow is its own domestic law by continuing the suspension of new permits for arms exports that are going directly to Israel; cancelling or suspending any active existing permits to export arms to Israel; and, as James noted, seizing military exports to the U.S. or, at minimum, implementing strong export controls to ensure that Canadian arms are not being used to commit human-rights violations in Gaza.
TVO Today: According to your submission, this is not the first time Canada has failed to hold corporations to account for facilitating human-rights violations abroad.
Yap: Canada has a long history of being taken to task by various international bodies and tribunals with respect to its record of regulating the conduct of Canadian companies and their extraterritorial human-rights impacts overseas. A lot of this has been with respect to the conduct of Canadian mining companies extraterritorially. With Canada being home to about 60 per cent of the world's mining companies, it has a lot to answer for in terms of the conduct of these companies that go to places all over the world. We build extractive mining operations in places where there is a substantial risk of getting involved in serious human-rights violations and violations of international law.
This is a problem that various UN bodies have been trying to hold Canada to account for for at least the past couple of decades. Canada has really struggled to take more effective measures to regulate some of these companies. There have been some efforts to introduce legislation and introduce, for example, an ombudsperson for responsible enterprise. But in places around the world, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Eritrea to Papua New Guinea, Canada has really developed a reputation for companies that drive serious human-rights abuses.
The resistance is political and also partly economic. Obviously, this is an issue that has a lot of controversy attached to it politically right now. At the same time, I feel that if most ordinary Canadians were aware of the kind of impacts that Canadian companies were having overseas, they would oppose them.
TVO Today: Thank you both. Anything to add that I haven’t asked about?
Parrin: It’s a terribly difficult moment, but what has been so heartening about this project and the submission we made to the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is the broad cross-section of Canadian civil society that has come out in support of it. You have feminist groups, trade unions, human-rights organizations, and grassroots groups that have all come together, looked at this report, and said Canada has an extraterritorial obligation. What Canada does beyond its borders matters. I think that's something that's really inspirational and will really push the needle. We are planning to go to Geneva at the end of next week for the hearings before the CEDAW committee. And we will be pushing that message that there is a broad cross-section of Canadian civil society that really believes that it's past time for Canada to act on this issue, it's still not too late, and we can still carry out action that is going to have a meaningful impact on this conflict.
Yap: I hear a lot of Canadians talk about how they feel a sense of despair and a sense of hopelessness watching these things happen. One of the points that we aim to make is that Canadians are not helpless to stop this — Canadians are very much involved. We're involved through a lot of the global economic institutions of power and dominance that are at the root of not just this conflict and this set of human-rights violations, but also many around the world. This is not an isolated conflict that is happening in another part of the world that has nothing to do with us. It’s very much connected to power dynamics that we are ourselves strongly connected to as a country. And it’s something we have the power to try to stop.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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