After Devastating Rejection, High-Profile Afghan Women’s Rights Activist Submits New Canadian Application

 

Sharen Craig, Bessa Whitmore, and Farzana Adell are trying once more to gain life-saving asylum for  Afghan women's rights defender Adell, whose protection application was denied by Ottawa.

 

OTTAWA – At 12:01 am on October 17, a dedicated group of Ottawa women submitted a Group of 5 sponsorship application for leading Afghan women’s rights defender Farzana Adell Ghadiya, who formerly worked in Kabul as Chief of Staff for the senior advisor to the president of Afghanistan on UN affairs. They stayed up late because that was the opening date for a recently announced time- and space-limited program to accept 3,000 Afghan refugees who were unable to register with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

 

Bessa Whitmore, a member of the group, has long offered Adell Ghadiya a free bedroom in her Ottawa home. She is part of the group of Ottawa women who maintain weekly contact with the persecuted women’s rights activist, Hazara minority, and Ismaili Muslim, who is now hiding in a third country where her visa runs out in two months.  The women, who already provide Adell Ghadiya with monthly financial support, have pledged to ensure all of her needs are taken care of for up to a year if she is approved to come to Canada.

 

 The women are relieved that Farzana was able to access the system and has now been assigned a file number, providing them some hope that her application will be seriously considered.

 

Adell Ghadiya continues to maintain hope that the high-profile campaign of support will help get her to safety in Canada.

 

“I was deeply disappointed when Canada rejected my first application without even reading it,” Adell Ghadiya shared from hiding. “When I got the rejection letter, it looked like they processed it incorrectly, because they said I was not eligible for something I didn’t even apply for. I hope this time that the assigned people in the immigration office read my application in detail and decide without prejudice as soon as possible. Time is running out for me, and I am afraid of being sent back to Afghanistan, where the whole world knows what will happen to a women’s rights defender like me.”

 

Earlier this month, it was revealed that, despite the clearly-defined risk of being forcibly returned to torture and death in Afghanistan, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) had rejected Adell Ghadiya’s application for protection. She had applied for a Temporary Resident Permit for Protection (TRP) given that she meets all the qualifications under the humanitarian program for Afghan refugees. It was a perfectly legitimate route for refugees to get to Canada (one often employed successfully by the Rural Refugee Rights Network), but IRCC failed to read her application materials and issued a boilerplate rejection usually sent to applicants for a temporary resident visa, a document that is time-limited and premised on the likelihood that the visitor will return to their country of origin.

 

But Farzana did not apply for a temporary resident visa. She applied for a TRP.

 

Advocates and supporters – including 35,000 people who have signed a support petition –  have ever since been calling on Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to immediately intervene and exercise his legally mandated discretion to provide Farzana with a Temporary Resident Permit as a path to safety and permanent residence.

 

“With the Group of Five sponsorship, we have one more pathway for Farzana to get here,” says Whitmore, adding she is “exasperated on behalf of Farzana and so many others in her shoes that the Canadian government just can’t seem to get it together when it comes to honouring the lives of Afghan refugees. The machinery seems to work if you’re Ukrainian, which is great, but not for Afghans. Hopefully this time the result will be different for Farzana.”

 

Farzana’s women’s support group and many other supporters are urging IRCC to expedite Adell Ghadiya’s file given the short time left on her non-renewable third country visa.

 

Sharen Craig, who speaks daily with Farzana, is hopeful that the sponsorship application will be approved, but worries about the long-term toll Canada’s bureaucratic bungles are having on her friend.  “Farzana speaks out despite the risk to herself, not only on her own behalf but for all Afghans facing the brutality of the new regime in Kabul. But what does it take to get her here? We have spoken with so many MPs, there’s been so much attention to her case, and yet all we get is a brick wall of rejection. I am up every night worried with fear for my lovely friend, whom I truly feel has become like a daughter to me. Even though this sponsorship checks all the right boxes, I won’t get a good night’s sleep until I am hugging Farzana here in Ottawa.”

 

For more information contact tasc@web.ca or (613) 300-9536.

 

Rural Refugee Rights Network

2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052

Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7

(613) 300-9536, tasc@web.ca, http://rrrncanada.blogspot.com/

 

 

High-Profile Afghan Women’s Rights Activist Submits New Canadian Application

 

 

 

 

Canada Rejects High-Profile Afghan Women’s Rights Activist, Leaving her at Lethal Risk; Immigration Officer Failed to Properly Assess Application for Protection

 

Despite the clearly-defined risk of being forcibly returned to torture and death in Afghanistan, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has rejected an application for protection by leading Afghan women’s rights defender Farzana Adell Ghadiya, who formerly worked as Chief of Staff for the UN High Commission on Women in Kabul.

 

As a persecuted women’s rights activist, Hazara minority, and Ismaili Muslim – a combination that makes her a priority target of the Taliban – Adell Ghadiya had applied for a Temporary Resident Permit for Protection (TRP) given that she meets all the qualifications under the humanitarian program for Afghan refugees. It is a perfectly legitimate route for refugees to get to Canada (one often employed successfully by the Rural Refugee Rights Network), but IRCC failed to read her application materials and issued a boilerplate rejection usually sent to applicants for a temporary resident visa, a document that is time-limited and premised on the likelihood that the visitor will return to their country of origin.

 

But Farzana did not apply for a temporary resident visa. She applied for a TRP.

 

Advocates and supporters are calling on Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to immediately intervene and exercise his legally mandated discretion to provide Farzana with a Temporary Resident Permit as a path to safety and permanent residence.

 

“It’s shocking that the IRCC didn’t even take the time to read her affidavit and submissions, which lay out the threats to her life and the obstacles Farzana and many Afghans face in getting to Canada,” explains Matthew Behrens of the Rural Refugee Rights Network. “It’s a fundamental breach of fairness to assess an application as something it isn’t. It shows how little value the lives of Afghan women have for the Canadian government, which had no trouble getting almost 80,000 Ukrainians here in 6 months but has barely brought 20,000 Afghans here in 14 months. Minister Fraser must issue her a permit immediately before she winds up in a Taliban dungeon or six feet under.”

 

Farzana’s work building girls’ schools and maternity hospitals and starting educational programs drew significant Taliban threats through her years in Afghanistan, resulting in a 2013 beating so severe that she was left for dead, suffering pain to this day from a leg injury and two ruptured discs sustained in that beating. Her work as Chief of Staff for the UN High Commission on Women from 2016-2017 also places her in the gun sights of the Taliban.

 

In addition to over 30,000 supporters on a change.org petition, Farzana enjoys a strong support community of women in Ottawa, who speak with her on a regular basis and send money to keep her going in a third country where she is in hiding due to fears of being swept up in frequent street roundups and forcibly returned to her death in Afghanistan.

 

“I have a free room waiting for her in my home and we have a group who are willing to provide for all of her needs until she is fully settled,” says Bessa Whitmore, a professor emerita from Carleton University. “It simply boggles my mind that some bureaucrat failed to open her file, read it accurately, and approve it.”

 

Sharen Craig, who speaks daily with Farzana, is equally appalled at the manner in which Farzana’s file has been dismissed. “In many ways, she is the face of the failure of this government’s program to bring Afghan refugees here,” she says. “Farzana speaks out despite the risk to herself, not only on her own behalf but for all Afghans facing the brutality of the new regime in Kabul. But what does it take to get her here? We have spoken with so many MPs, there’s been so much attention to her case, and yet all we get is a brick wall of rejection. I am up every night worried with fear for my lovely friend, whom I truly feel has become like a daughter to me.”

 

Despite her disappointment, Adell Ghadiya feels hopeful that pressure from Canadians will turn this negative ruling around. “I really believe that if Mr. Fraser read my file, he would approve it,” she says. “I have seen so much love and kindness from Canadians supporting me and so many other Afghan people seeking safety, and I put my faith and trust in them to continue speaking up so that we can find the protection we need.”

 

For more information contact tasc@web.ca or (613) 300-9536.

 

Rural Refugee Rights Network

2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052

Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7

(613) 300-9536, tasc@web.ca, http://rrrncanada.blogspot.com/

Join the 15th for Family Reunification Campaign! Make Visible and End the Invisible Crisis of Family Separation

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Refugees and migrants should always be treated with respect and dignity, and in accordance with existing international law.  Children must not be traumatized by being separated from their parents.  Family unity must be preserved.” – UN Secretary-General António Guterres, June 18, 2018

 

“We are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs, we clean your rooms...” – Okwe, Dirty Pretty Things

 

JOIN/ORGANIZE MONTHLY FAMILY REUNIFICATION VIGILS

Beginning February 15, 2022, join us on the 15^th of every month as we gather for peaceful, public vigils in our communities to demand immediate reunification of hundreds of thousands of long-separated refugee, immigrant, and citizen families; build networks of mutual support while sharing personal stories and discussing legal strategies; and seek institutional change to end the cruel, racist limbo imposed on millions of people for whom “temporary” status, total lack of status, and family separation result in endless pain, fear, and suffering. (Details on how you can arrange a vigil are below!)

 

The Rural Refugee Rights Network and Voices4Families strongly believe that it is critical to expose and end the silent suffering endured by those who, due to institutional indifference, racism, and misplaced political priorities, are unable to enjoy the internationally and domestically guaranteed legal right to live together as family. By coming together in public venues (offices of the federal government, MPs, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, aka IRCC, and high-profile public squares), holding large pictures of long-separated loved ones, sharing stories of the mind-numbingly ridiculous reasons that have been used to justify arbitrary and unaccountable denial of visas, and building networks of support based on a commonly shared trauma, we believe we can put additional pressure on a federal government whose sweet tweets on reunification have no basis in reality.

 

We live in a society that is by its very nature disempowering and disconnecting. We are told from an early age that you can’t fight city hall, you can’t change anything, no one will listen, you need millions of people on your side. We are also told that if you have a problem, it is always your fault, you are to blame, and don’t air your dirty laundry. We are made to feel guilty or selfish if we demand rights that we deserve. But these are all myths used by the powerful to convince us there is no point in trying, even as history shows us otherwise. The words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass ring loudly over a century later: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress….Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Anthropologist Margaret Mead echoed that sentiment, reminding us: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

 

The Scale of the Problem

The Toronto Star reports that as of July 31, 2021, more than 561,700 people were awaiting permanent residence, and 748,381 had a pending temporary residence application as students, workers or visitors while the backlog for citizenship stood at 376,458 people. Le Droit reported in May, 2021 that the average processing time for permanent residence applications that could reunite long-separated families was 39 months. It is so bad that even the Liberals ran on a platform that recognized the need for “a program to issue visas to spouses and children abroad while they wait for the processing of their permanent residency application, so that families can be together sooner.”

 

The failure to prioritize families was illustrated yet again with the Liberal government’s proposed immigration levels for 2021-23, in which Canada projects twice as many economic/business immigrants as family reunification numbers (and with refugees accounting for 75% fewer spots than economic immigrants)

 

Family separation is also a public health crisis. It is played out in emergency rooms and medical clinics every day: countless thousands who have not been able to hug their spouses or kids or parents for years are trying to beat back the wave of deep depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts while suffering stress-induced physical maladies. Their nights are full of tears and heart palpitations, trying to maintain relationships through phone apps and choppy videos, compulsively checking the IRCC portal for signs of progress on their files, fearful that taking public action will push their file deeper into the abyss indefinite separation.

 

Happy political photo-ops to the contrary, Canada is not a country that prioritizes the welcoming of families. Instead, it privileges wealthy and business-class immigrants while it relies on the precarity of migrant workers, the under-the-table economy staffed by hundreds of thousands without status, and the fear of speaking up as a means of exploiting a cheap labour force. Refugees and immigrants are not seen as human beings fleeing persecution and abominable living conditions, but rather as impersonal tools whose only use is for economic strategy and “labour market” placeholders.

 

While Canada as a nation has been challenged to reckon with the genocidal roots of its founding – a country build on the forced separation of Indigenous families – we are similarly called to eradicate the racism and cruelty that are embedded in immigration bureaucracies and result in unspeakable amounts of stress, suffering, and trauma. While this campaign cannot solve all the problems associated with the huge structural barriers that make this country a less than welcoming place for far too many, we believe that the public awareness, education, advocacy, and mutual support arising from it will contribute to the broader discussions about and efforts to institute the types of major change necessary to ensure an end to these abusive practices.  

 

Institutional Barriers

Part of the problem is that Canada employs twice as many people on the enforcement end of immigration – working to deport the most vulnerable back to the countries they fled ­– than it does to facilitate their entry.   Indeed, some 14,000 people work day and night at Canadian Border Services Agency to meet arbitrary deportation quotas, throw refugees into prison on the flimsiest of grounds (in 2019/20, over 8,800 refugees were detained without charge, including 136 children), and work overseas to prevent migrants from getting here in the first place. By contrast, IRCC has just over 7,000 workers, many of whom tend to play a role similar to CBSA, finding excuses to delay or reject applications in a work environment that its own employees say is rank with racism.

 

A 2021 report on IRCC’s work culture found that “significant proportions of racialized employees consider racism to be a problem within the department,” pointing to hurtful comments, “blatantly racist tropes,” and “racial biases in the application of IRCC’s programs, policies and client service that are believed to result from implicit biases among decision makers, as well as administrative practices that introduce biases or the potential for bias over time.” These focus groups also pointed to “a deep imbalance in racial representation in management that inherently militates against progress on dealing with racism in the department.”

           

That racism is often exhibited in the very overseas visa posts that are apparently tasked with the Afghan refugee crisis. As one participant noted in the focus group, they “decided not to accept any postings to countries in the region their ancestors came from, as the emotional toll of being exposed repeatedly to racist comments against people of their background had become too heavy.”

 

NEXT STEPS

Every community across this land has individuals and families who suffer from these abusive government practices. There are also advocates who are willing to work alongside of those whose suffering voices need to be shared and magnified. We are encouraging anyone directly affected alongside those who believe such abuses must end to plan public vigils at the place and time of day of your choosing on the 15^th of every month. February 15 marks the day after any provinces celebrates Family Day.

 

A public vigil is a perfectly legal undertaking for which no permit is required. You have a Charter right to assemble and express yourselves. How you organize a vigil is completely up to you. You can have a speak-out in which families share their stories of separation, governmental barriers, and political negligence. You can stage theatre pieces, read poetry, sing songs, hold large signs with pictures of your separated loved ones. Invite the media. Encourage members of local churches, student groups, and more to attend with you. If you have never done something like this before and need some help with ideas on how to approach it, let us know and we’d love to hear from you and talk it through. If you are prepared to commit to gathering on the 15^th as much as you can during 2022, please let us know as we build this network of support and solidarity. You can reach us at tasc@web.ca

 

Together, let’s end the suffering of family separation while challenging a system that, absent major overhaul, will continue to perpetuate this misery.

 

The Rural Refugee Rights Network

2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052

Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7

tasc@web.ca, (613) 300-9536, http://rrrncanada.blogspot.com/

 https://www.facebook.com/Rural-Refugee-Rights-Network-105352081349200

 

Voices4Families

https://www.facebook.com/groups/voices4families

admin@voices4families.ca

403 966-1820