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
