Farzana’s life is in danger and time is running out. Her visa will expire at the end of the year in the country where she is residing. Unable to work or access the healthcare she requires to treat diabetes, she is currently depending on supporters to send her money to afford basic life necessities.
As a dedicated women’s rights defender Farzana has spent her life advancing women’s equality. She has helped to build schools for girls and maternity hospitals, she co-founded Gender Equality Rights Organization Afghanistan, and worked as chief of staff for the UN Commission on the Status of Women in the office of former Afghan president Asraf Ghani. It is this dedication to advancing women’s equality that puts her life in such danger due to Taliban retribution. Indeed, the Taliban have a decade-long history of harassing and beating Farzana to within an inch of her life.
Open Letter: Gaza Family Reunification Measures
Over the past two months, I have become aware of more than two-hundred Palestinian Canadians with either citizenship or permanent resident status across the country that have applied to sponsor their family members in Gaza to come to Canada through the family reunification program. These families have begun the application process to bring nearly 2,500 loved ones from Gaza in total. Of these family members stuck in Gaza, 78 per cent are still waiting to receive the code from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that is required to proceed to the next phase and complete their application.
Your department has stated that 986 people have received a code and used it to submit a temporary resident visa (TRV) application which has been accepted into processing. It is apparent that the code issuing system works in lockstep with the 1,000-person cap to severely restrict the inflow of applications. It should be abundantly clear that you must lift the cap.
It has been almost seventy days since the program opened for applications on January 9. These families are desperate to know when, or if, loved ones will be allowed to come to Canada. For many, the news is consuming their life as they anxiously await to hear from IRCC officials regarding their application. Yet they are met with radio silence from IRCC. The process is frankly excruciating to for family members. The federal NDP caucus has already condemned this non-communicative approach, called on you to lift the arbitrary cap, and change the discriminatory lens through which this policy approaches Palestinians.