Interfaith marriage fatwa feeds debate in Egypt

2020/12/01 Leave a comment

Of note, one of the issues of debate between more inclusive or traditional interpretations:

An Islamic scholar has stirred up major debates by backing the marriage of Muslim women and non-Muslim men, an issue always dealt with nervously by the religious establishment and pro-establishment scholars.

Amna Nosier, a professor of Islamic philosophy at Al-Azhar University and a member of the Egyptian Parliament, said there is no text in the Quran that bans the marriage of Muslim women and non-Muslim men. Islam permits Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women, provided that they do not prevent them from observing their faith.

There are many instances of Muslim men, including celebrities, who have married non-Muslim women. Egypt’s former minister of religious endowments, Mahmud Hamdi Zakzouk, who died in April this year, was married to a German Christian woman.

Speaking on al-Hadath al-Youm TV Nov. 17, Nosier added that the question is especially clear if the men are Christians or Jews, which Islam calls “people of the book.”

A day later, Nosier told the state-run Channel One TV that the Quran only forbids the marriage of Muslim women and “idolaters.” She called on religious scholars to study and reconsider the issue.

Nosier’s remarks were met with a round of fatwas from the nation’s religious establishment and pro-establishment scholars.

Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning, said the marriage of Muslim women and non-Muslim men is not permissible.

“This is an issue on which all scholars agreed in the past and agree in the present,” Al-Azhar said in a Nov. 18 statement.

Abdullah Rushdi, a researcher at the Ministry of Religious Endowments, which oversees the work of the nation’s mosques, described this type of marriage as a form of adultery and “invalid” in a video uploaded Nov. 18.

Ahmed Kerima, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at al-Azhar University, said all Muslim scholars are united against this form of marriage.

“This is a well-established opinion at all times and everywhere,” Kerima told Sada al-Balad TV Nov. 18.

Whether Muslim women should be allowed to marry men who do not follow their faith is an issue that has always been the subject of anxious and acrimonious discussion.

The religious establishment says the Quran speaks against this marriage beyond any doubt, citing verses from the holy book of Muslims that ban the marriage of Muslim women and “idolaters.”

Nevertheless, those calling for sanctifying this form of marriage draw a line between “idolators” and “people of the book.”

Beneath this row lies a need for the reexamination and reinterpretation of religious texts, say religious reformists, especially concerning issues on which the scriptures do not offer clear rules.

“The fight over interfaith marriages is now within Al-Azhar,” said Khalid Montasser, a medical doctor, writer and staunch campaigner for religious reform. “It is between those who want renewal and those who want to keep things as they are with the aim of controlling the public,” he told Al-Monitor.

Historian and researcher Maged M. Farag, one of thousands of people debating interfaith marriages in cyberspace in the past few days, said he knows of dozens of Muslim women who married non-Muslim men.

“They register civil marriage contracts in Lebanon, Cyprus and other countries,” Farag said. “Some non-Muslim men even convert to Islam on paper only. Those living outside Egypt do not care a whit about the fatwas of these sheikhs,” Farag wrote on Facebook.

Nosier says these problems are why there is an urgent need for religious scholars to discuss modern issues and guide believers on dealing with them.

“This is a very serious issue that affects the lives of millions of Muslim women living in the West,” Nosier told Al-Monitor. “Some of these women have to live with their non-Muslim partners without being married to them, as their religion prohibits it. We must renew our understanding of religion to keep up with the changes happening in our life.”

The issue became a hot topic in Egypt after Tunisia overturned a law that prevented Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims in 2017.

Muslim men being permitted to marry non-Muslim women gives rise to accusations that men interpret religious texts in their own interests.

“Men dominate the interpretation of religious texts,” feminist writer and equality campaigner Dena Anwer told Al-Monitor. “Women can no longer be ignored, especially with the major role they play in society.”

TV host Yasmine el-Khateib expressed the view that allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men would be the “correction” of a mistake men make by giving themselves rights they deny women.

The ongoing debate is likely to continue and deepen, but may or may not lead to social change.

Cases of interfaith marriage often elicit shock and condemnation among a large number of Egyptians. Under this shock is the unwavering stance of the religious establishment that these marriages are unacceptable in Islam, especially if they are of women marrying non-Muslim men.

Mohamed Gamal, a civil servant in his early 40s using a pseudonym, said he married a non-Muslim woman even as everyone around him opposed it.

“My family opposed it and her family opposed it, too,” Gamal told Al-Monitor.

He said he has to hide his wife’s religious identity to avoid trouble. “Everybody is against interfaith marriages, even as Muslim men are permitted to marry non-Muslim women,” Gamal said.

Al-Monitor contacted several Muslim women who have married non-Muslim men, but none were ready to talk.

“Muslim scholars prohibited the marriage of Muslim women and non-Muslim men at all times and everywhere, having based their judgment on strong evidence,” said Osama al-Hadidi, the director of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Center, the website through which Al-Azhar reaches out to Muslims around the world. “They did this for the welfare of families,” he told Al-Monitor.

Source: Interfaith marriage fatwa feeds debate in Egypt

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Korea: Immigration not the only solution to demographic change

2020/11/24 Leave a comment

Interesting take, reflecting under-employment of women in Korea:

From an agrarian economy in the 1960s to now one of the strongest economic forces in Asia, Korea has evidently achieved tremendous economic growth, which not only comes with fiscal and welfare improvements but also demographic changes. The United Nations predicted that Korea’s population will peak in 2024 and decrease from then on and a 2000 UN Population Division report suggests immigration as a solution to this issue.

Yet, the rate at which Korea’s population is decreasing would require a mass immigration so large that it becomes an ineffective solution. Therefore, it has to be done at a smaller scale and coupled with other solutions that rely on Korea’s existing population.

The demographic change looming over this country ― and others ― is called demographic transition, which is the decrease in fertility and infant death rate due to improved welfare and technological development. It occurs in developed countries and results in a declining and aging population. The latter is the change in age structure to one with a greater proportion of older age groups, whereas the former is the change in the total overall population.

Immigration intended to offset the decline in the population size is called replacement migration, yet it can also address the declining working-age population. Based on the UN report, Korea has to aim for an annual net immigration of 800,000 between 2035 and 2050 to maintain the ratio of a working-age individual to retiree at 3.0. To bring in that number of people annually is close to impossible considering Korea’s past trends: 156,000 in 2018, and 32,000 in 2019.

To actualize our goal of sustainable economic growth, our solution itself should be sustainable. Therefore a more direct immigration policy is suggested. An example is Japan’s 2019 immigration policy that created two new visa status types for foreigners working in sectors experiencing labor shortages. With this solution, the country with the highest proportion of people over 65 years old was able to target specific industries that require manpower.

The proposed solution above greatly reduced the UN’s recommended annual net immigration, which means we have to look within the country and utilize existing human capital ― Korean women.

Despite having the highest tertiary education rates out of 36 OECD countries for women aged 25 to 34, Korea ranked 30th in women’s employment. An Ewha Law School professor suggests in a CNN interview that such contradicting statistics are proof that discriminatory hiring is still prevalent despite anti-discriminatory laws.

The Korean judicial system needs to address this issue with stricter consequences. The initiative to change should also come from organizations, and at all levels of management. Every individual is responsible to correct old prejudices and biases that promote sexism.

Yet, encouraging female employment means more than just hiring more women. It also means hiring them for leadership positions, and jobs that are historically perceived to be more appropriate for men ― referring to labor-intensive work.

Other potential solutions are empowering the elderly and extending the work-life of workers. It’s important to mention that this solution is not simply done by increasing the retirement age. Instead, it’s done by carrying out health-related initiatives and promoting lifelong learning.

Firstly, lifelong learning. Currently, Korea already has the Lifelong Education Act. Under this statute, the Korean government can plan programs purposed for cultivating human capital potential.

One way to do that is by providing opportunities for people to learn emerging skills, similar to what the Singapore University of Social Sciences is already doing. They’re offering credits for courses in emerging skills to their alumni. This is a potential solution because technological innovations also mean a workforce that needs to be trained in utilizing said technology. This resource should also be available to people of all ages and employment status.

Secondly, concerning health, investing in preventive countermeasures is impactful. Educating the public on ways to take care of their health will be cheaper compared to subsidizing healthcare costs due to ailments.

One supporting case is the company Johnson & Johnson (J&J) that strategically planned wellness programs for their employee’s social, mental, and physical health. Their efforts resulted in $250 million in healthcare savings. For every dollar J&J spent on wellness programs, they received a return of $2.71 between 2002 and 2008. Harvard Business Review even suggests that every dollar invested in health-risk prevention saves $6 in healthcare costs.

Korea’s working population has been decreasing due to population aging and decline. Replacement immigration has been suggested as a solution to this issue.

Yet the answer to whether or not Korea should embrace more immigration to ensure sustainable growth is not a simple yes or no. Replacement migration is one solution to this, but it shouldn’t be the only one. An issue as complex as this one needs more than just one big solution. Like a pride of lions hunting their prey, so should we address this issue, with several solutions.

Maria Natasha Lintang is a student at the State University of New York, Korea.

Source: Immigration not the only solution to demographic change

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The Mixed-Orientation Couple: a dramatic development in Canadian immigration law

2020/11/19 Leave a comment

Notable:

Immigration law both shapes and reflects the society that produces it. A recent and pioneering case, A.P. v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 906 (CanLII) makes this adage clear. In it, we see the dialogic, interpretative, and pragmatic nature of Canadian policy and law.

The Federal Court of Canada recently confronted a case involving a rather unusual set of circumstances, where a gay man and a straight woman who shared a child were denied conjugal sponsorship. The facts are as follows:

A man known to us only by his initials, A.P., came to Canada several years ago. A.P. claimed that he was subject to persecution in his unnamed country of origin due to being gay. A.P’s claim was successful, and he obtained protected person status and permanent residency in Canada. Some time later, A.P. met up, in a third country, with a heterosexual female friend from university named A.M. After what the court describes as a ‘night on the town’, A.P. and A.M. had intercourse and a child resulted from this encounter.

A.P. and A.M. decided to try to parent the child together as a couple, even though A.M. continued to identify as gay, not bisexual. A.M. could not return to his home country, and A.M. and A.P’s efforts to relocate to or marry in a third country failed. Consequently, A.P. sought to sponsor the child, and A.M. as A.P.’s conjugal partner, through the family class of Canadian immigration.

A Canadian immigration officer denied A.P’s application. A.P. then appealed to the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), a specialized Canadian administrative tribunal that handles such matters. The IAD upheld the officer’s determination that A.M. was not A.P.’s conjugal partner, meaning that A.P. could not sponsor her as such. Among other factors, the IAD cited, in its decision, its conclusion that “a homosexual man and a heterosexual woman are [not] able to meet the sexual component of conjugal partnership,” and based on the following factors concluded that the sexual and personal behaviour of the couple was inconsistent with a conjugal partnership.”

A.P. appealed the I.A.D. ruling to the Federal Court of Canada. This court determined that the officer’s decision was not reasonable, and sent it back to another officer for redetermination. Justice Fuhrer, in her judgment, was emphatic that the IAD had erred in holding that A.P. and A.M. were not a conjugal unit. Justice Fuhrer noted that, notwithstanding the differing orientation of A.P. and A.M. the two were, with the use of sexual aids, enjoy sexual intimacy. Moreover, argued Justice Fuhrer, M. v. H. (1999), a landmark Supreme Court Canada case on the rights of same-sex couples, provided a holistic framework for determining the existence of a conjugal union; sexual intimacy or the lack thereof was not necessarily a determining factor. Thus, concluded Justice Fuhrer, it was entirely possible that what she termed a ‘mixed-orientation couple’, even one that did not have any sexual intimacy, could form a conjugal union. Accordingly, the Federal Court remanded A.P.’s sponsorship application to another officer for redetermination.

The above series of events illustrates so many facets of Canada and the judicial system. The ability to challenge a decision one considers unjust. The expansive and evolving interpretation of statute. The independence and the ability of the Courts to intervene and determine that a decision is unreasonable, and therefore overturn it. The gradual but clear development in Canadian law that sexual orientation is an unacceptable ground of discrimination. The expansion of the Canadian understanding of the family – from the traditional heterosexual married couple (generally, with children) to include same-sex couples as well as those which are not formally married – like A.M. and A.F. The role of precedent, of other cases, as a basis for re-understanding the issue at hand. The supremacy Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms over laws and interpretations with which it finds itself in conflict.

Where to from this decision? A.P. and A.M. and their case go back to an immigration officer. The current Canadian government, which has emphasized the defence of the rights of sexual minorities, even going so far as to formally apologize for discrimination that previous governments perpetuated against LGBTQ2+ individuals, seems highly unlikely to challenge the Federal Court’s determination in any way. Will other current Canadian understandings of what the family is, for the purposes of immigration – who is a parent, who is a child, the means of determining a relationship is genuine – change? Will Parliament or subordinate rule-makers (Ministerial officials, etc.), pre-empt the Courts, or will the Courts continue to pioneer new interpretations? Will there be a backlash against the either phenomenon – say, a feeling that the Court has gone too far? How will other countries receive the dramatic decision emanating from Canada? Will they emulate it? Or forcefully reject it?

This much, we can say with confidence: The Federal Court’s decision in the case of A.P. and A.M., is both bold and grounded in Canadian jurisprudence, a product and a shaper of Canadian law. And it raises as many questions as it answers.

Source: The Mixed-Orientation Couple: a dramatic development in Canadian immigration law

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Pandemic risks companies’ diversity efforts, CPPIB CEO Mark Machin says

2020/11/10 Leave a comment

Of note:

The pandemic is threatening the pipeline of emerging female leaders and risks thwarting the progress Corporate Canada has made in diversity and inclusion efforts, the head of the country’s largest pension fund is warning.

The pace of change, particularly in diversifying executive teams, was already slow, said Mark Machin, president and chief executive officer of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, in an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, “you see some particularly alarming trends. … It could leave a permanent scarring and a setback for a lot of the progress that’s been made in the past,” he said.

The pandemic pushed women’s participation in the labour force down to a three-decade low, he noted; though there’s been a partial recovery in recent months, he cited recent surveys showing women are experiencing severe stress and burnout during the pandemic, with many considering quitting or reducing hours.

“It is fragile,” he said of the current situation, ahead of a gender diversity white paper that CPPIB will publish on Monday.

Female directors now account for 30 per cent of the board seats at TSX 60 index-listed companies – and just 15 per cent of the C-suite for the same group of companies, it noted.

To address that dearth, companies should set measurable targets for diversity on both boards and executive positions, Mr. Machin said. “I am a huge believer in targets. As business people, once we know what the target is, then we’ll solve for it.”

Few companies in Canada, however, have publicly stated targets: 29 per cent of companies say they have targets for women on boards, while just 7 per cent have targets for female executive officers, according to a report last month by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.

With so few companies setting diversity targets, some say the federal government may have to step in. Last week, Senator Howard Wetston, the former chair of the Ontario Securities Commission, said Ottawa may have to require corporate boards to set targets if the provinces fail to do so. “We haven’t gone far enough and we need to do better,” he said.

Boosting diversity in leadership is also crucial to Canada’s economic recovery, Mr. Machin said, citing studies showing that businesses with diverse work forces came through the previous recession in better shape.

As long-term investors, “it’s something that matters for us,” he said. “If you have companies that have diverse senior managements and diverse boards, they’re more likely to produce better risk-adjusted returns, because they make better decisions over time. It’s not just a belief – we’ve done that analysis multiple different ways.”

CPPIB, which has a $434-billion portfolio, has stepped up efforts to improve board diversity. In 2017, it started voting against the election of the nominating committee chair if the board had zero female directors. Last year, it voted against 13 Canadian public companies with no women on the board, and another 26 companies with only one female director.

This year, it voted against directors at 10 public companies (nine of which on the S&P/TSX Composite Index had only one woman on the board; the other, not listed on the benchmark index, was a company with none). Globally, it voted against 323 companies for failing to have any women on their boards.

“Watch this space,” Mr. Machin said, when asked if the fund is going to further ramp up pressure in the coming year.

The white paper issued several recommendations to accelerate the participation of women at all corporate levels, among them, giving workers more control over their schedules and removing bias by, for example, running job descriptions through software programs to eliminate terms that may appeal more to men.

It also urged more support for child care. Furloughs and reduced hours “may turn into permanent departures if parents who lack child care are forced to put their professional ambitions on hold,” it cautioned. Businesses can address this by creating more on-site daycares, helping employees source child care and accommodating workers who can’t return to the office because their children remain at home, the report said.

The CPPIB is not the only institution urging a greater priority on child care. Bank of Nova Scotia CEO Brian Porter called on the federal government in September to “significantly” enhance supports for parents with kids in daycare, to enable more women to enter the work force. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce also recently called for child-care reforms to improve affordability and accessibility, saying the COVID-19 crisis is having a “disproportionate” economic impact on women.

In an accompanying opinion piece submitted to The Globe, Mr. Machin noted the looming challenges in the coming months, with the economy projected to shrink by 6 per cent. “We expect a recession more than twice as deep as the one following the global financial crisis in 2008,” he said. “Let’s not hobble ourselves by denying our companies the talents and wisdom of half the population.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-cppib-ceo-mark-machin-says-canada-needs-to-accelerate-the/

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Big gender gap in students attitudes and engagement in global and multicultural issues

2020/10/28 Leave a comment

New interesting element to the OECD’s PISA assessment. Detailed review on my to do list to see if interesting immigrant/non-immigrant comparisons:

Schools and education systems are failing to give boys and girls across the world the same opportunities to learn and apply their knowledge of global and multicultural issues, according to a new report on the first OECD PISA assessment of the knowledge, skills and attitudes of students to engage with other people and cultures.

Are Students Ready to Thrive in an Interconnected World? focused on students’ knowledge of issues of local and global significance, including public health, economic and environmental issues, as well as their intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes. Students from 27 countries and economies took the test. Students, teachers, parents and school principals from around 66 countries and economies completed a questionnaire*.

The results reveal a gender gap in access to opportunities to learn global competence as well as in students’ global and intercultural skills and attitudes. On average across OECD countries, boys were more likely than girls to report taking part in activities where they are expected to express and discuss their views, while girls were more likely than boys to report taking part in activities related to intercultural understanding and communication.

Boys, for example, were more likely to learn about the interconnectedness of countries’ economies, look for news on the Internet or watch the news together during class. They were also more likely to be asked by teachers to give their opinion about international news, take part in classroom discussions about world events and analyse global issues with their classmates.

In contrast, girls were more likely than boys to report that they learn how to solve conflicts with their peers in the classroom, learn about different cultures and learn how people from different cultures can have different perspectives on some issues. These gender differences could reflect personal interests and self-efficacy but could also reflect how girls and boys are socialised at home and at school, according to the report.

“Education is key to helping young people navigate today’s increasingly complex and interconnected world,” said Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills. “The schools and education systems that are most successful in fostering global knowledge, skills and attitudes among young people are those that offer a curriculum that values openness to the world, provide a positive and inclusive learning environment and offer opportunities to relate to people from other cultures.”

The findings reveal the key role teachers play in promoting and integrating intercultural understanding into their classroom practices and lessons. Most teachers reported that they are confident in their ability to teach in multicultural settings. But the lack of adequate professional development opportunities in this field is a major challenge. Few teachers reported having received training on teaching in multicultural or multilingual settings.

More than 90% of students attended schools where principals reported positive multicultural beliefs among their teachers. Yet students who perceive discrimination by their teachers towards immigrants and people from other cultural backgrounds, for example, exhibited similar negative attitudes. This highlights the key role of teachers and school principals in countering or perpetuating discrimination by acting as role models.

The report found a strong link between students learning activities at school and having more positive intercultural attitudes. Also, speaking two or more languages was positively associated with awareness of global issues, interest in learning about other cultures, respect for people from other cultures and positive attitudes towards immigrants.

On average across OECD countries, 50% of students reported learning two or more languages at school, 38% reported learning one foreign language and only 12% reported not learning any foreign language at school. The largest share of students (more than 20%) who reported not learning any foreign language at school were observed in Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Scotland. By contrast, in 42 countries, more than 90% of students reported that they learn at least one foreign language at school.

Source: Big gender gap in students attitudes and engagement in global and multicultural issues

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Overcoming the diversity deficit on federal courts

2020/10/17 Leave a comment

Actually, compared to the previous Conservative government, the record in federal judicial appointments to the federal and provincial courts is strong:: 56.2% women compared to 35.6%, 7.8% vismin compared to 2%, 2.8% Indigenous compared to 0.8%.

I sometimes question whether advocates for increased representation have looked at the data before asserting that more needs to be done.

And yes, more should be done to encourage more lawyers from minorities to submit their names along with other efforts and it should be possible to learn from the experience of the last 5 years:

Federal justice minister David Lametti knows that the federally-appointed bench isn’t diversifying quickly enough, and he’s vowing to do something about it.

“It is going in the right direction, I’m pleased at the direction in which it’s going,” says Lametti. “Is there more work to do? Absolutely. We need to make more good appointments, but I think we’re doing a decent job, and we’re getting better at it, and hopefully it will continue to improve over time.”

But merely calling on lawyers from under-represented groups — BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Colour], women and the LGBT community — to put their names forward hasn’t been doing the trick. Members of legal organizations representing diversity on the bar say that this approach may have run its course.

“If you just keep doing things the same old way, they’re clearly not reaching people and then people aren’t applying,” says Brad Regehr, president of the Canadian Bar Association, and a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, who is based in Winnipeg. “It’s going to take some innovation in terms of reaching people.”

There is ample evidence that women and other minorities will self-select themselves out of an application process for a position on the bench because they don’t feel that they could be chosen based on the established profile of the judiciary, which makes the notion of application problematic.

“We know that people’s sense of how qualified they are varies according to gender and racialization, and other experiences that people may have had,” says Martha Jackman, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, and co-chair of the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL).

“To apply, by definition, you have to think that you’re qualified. But you also have to feel like you’re appointable, and there are many qualified applicants that may well understand that they are extremely meritorious – even more meritorious than others – but they have a strong sense, that is probably accurate, that they won’t be appointed, so they don’t apply,” says Jackman. “There is a typical profile for who is appointed.”

Lori Anne Thomas, president of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, agrees that people who don’t see themselves on the bench will avoid applying. “Why put yourself through the torture for a job that’s probably not going to happen?” asks Thomas.

Both Thomas and Jackman also point to how opaque the federal application process can be, making it another barrier for application.

“You’re applying for a position that may or may not exist,” says Thomas. “You’ll never know when the decision will be made, and as soon as the decision is made, you’re no longer a lawyer – you plan for a future that may never happen or can happen in the next minute. It’s a very odd situation.”

At least in the Ontario Court of Justice application process, Thomas notes, there are interviews that tell applicants they have reached that stage in the process. That doesn’t happen federally, and lawyers don’t necessarily have access to someone who has been through the process before to reassure them.

Thomas recommends that the government make the process “more transparent and welcoming to everybody who applies.”

“These are professional people, and if they have the qualifications, they should know where they are,” she says adding that it would be worthwhile for the Judicial Advisory Committee to take the time to offer some encouraging words not to give up.

According to Jackman, any systemically discriminatory forces at play in society and within the profession will be reflected and reinforced in an appointment process.

“I think there is a legitimate perception that this is an insider’s opaque process where there are certain individuals who already have a big head-start, and why would you bother?” she says.

Lametti says he’s aware that people will take themselves out of the running, and that the “process is onerous.” But for a reason: “It’s onerous because it’s introspective,” says Lametti. “Whatever the outcome, you actually understand yourself a whole lot better when you’re done, and it is an in-depth application process because we want people to realize that we want them to write about their experiences. We want them to tell us about what has made them unique, and that’s onerous. But if we were more superficial about it, […] we wouldn’t get the quality outcomes that we’re looking for.”

Lametti says that the government is making headway with its appointments. Of the 74 appointments made since the October 2019 election, 44 have been women, two have been Indigenous, 14 were visible minorities, and six identified as LGBT. He hopes that record will help more lawyers from diverse backgrounds see themselves on the bench.

Thomas, however, is wary of the statistics that don’t differentiate Black appointments from other visible minorities.

“What they fail to understand is that people of colour and Black are not necessarily the same thing,” says Thomas. “Black people can be included in people of colour, but given that both Indigenous and Black persons are over-represented in the criminal justice system, when somebody who’s Black or Indigenous comes in and they see someone who is South Asian or Asian, that doesn’t make them feel that this person understands my lived experience.”

And what if, instead of waiting on people of diverse backgrounds to apply, the judicial advisory committees were to be more proactive in targeting lawyers by nominating them?

“Clearly, we are in a position where things have been done a certain way for a long time, and then we’re getting the complaint that people aren’t applying,” says Regehr. Then I say give it a try.”

According to Jackman, being tapped by someone in government will give the potential applicant the impression that they are qualified.

Thomas agrees that nominations are an idea to consider. “I can say that CABL has an open relationship with the federal government, as well as provincial governments, in terms of talking about these issues, but it is hard when the process is so difficult,” says Thomas.

It’s a fair point, says Lametti, but he doesn’t want to bring back nominations at the cost of ensuring that the process is transparent and fair.

“We’ve put in a variety of application processes to become transparent and fair, but every time I’m out since I became minister, in speaking to various parts of the legal community, I’ve told people to apply,” says Lametti. “I’ve told people not only to become judges, but to apply to be members of the JAC, because they are representative in their composition in order to get better readings of the files.”

Troy Riddell, a political science professor at the University of Guelph, who studies judicial appointments, says that the government could alleviate concerns around transparency by outlining a public list of criteria.

“As long as there was an understanding that, if the [Judicial Affairs] Commissioner’s office directly encouraged an application, that application would have to go through the same vetting process as other candidates, I would not see a problem with that approach,” says Riddell.

Lametti is also keen to emphasize the value of mentorship to get more diverse lawyers to apply to the bench.

“We all have a role to play, where you see good colleagues and you think ‘you really ought to do this. You should be thinking about this, and you should be preparing yourself to apply,’ or helping edit or draft the application, or giving feedback, or whatever,” says Lametti. “We all have an obligation to do that, and I think we’ll get a better bench if we do.”

Regehr agrees that reaching out and talking to lawyers about applying for the bench helps. But he also preaches tenacity. “Being a lawyer is a busy occupation,” he says. “Sometimes you’re getting 100 emails every day, and it gets buried. That can be part of the problem, too. It requires some rethinking in terms of how we advertise for these jobs, and how government and Judicial Affairs can reach out to people.”

Black and Indigenous professionals who have been elevated to the bench also have a role to play, says Thomas. But because there are so few of them, it can be a burden.

“It places a lot of the responsibility on associations such as ours, where we are trying to reach out to our membership and encourage them to apply,” she says. “But that’s from our point of view – not necessarily the judiciary or the federal government.” More outreach on their part “could be enough to encourage people to apply.”

Several legal groups have written letters to Lametti, calling on him to fill vacancies on the Federal Court with BIPOC judges, including the CBA. Only two currently sit on the court.

Lametti says that he hasn’t yet formally responded to the letters. However, he did want to set the record straight that candidates other than those seeking appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada need not be bilingual in both official languages.

“Bilingualism is an asset but is not a requirement or a baseline requirement for either the Federal Court judges or the federally-appointed superior court judges in Canada,” he says.

He also noted that federal judges often have to move to the Ottawa-Gatineau region. That, coupled with the subject-matter needs of the court, further complicate matters.

“The Federal Court has subject area jurisdiction in Indigenous matters, in administrative law, in intellectual property, as examples, and you do want people with expertise in those areas for those courts,” says Lametti. “That being said, we do our best to make sure that candidates from diverse backgrounds are considered for Federal Court appointments, and I think we’re getting better in that regard as well.”

Jackman notes that there will soon be two Ontario vacancies on the Supreme Court. There won’t be any excuse for passing over appointments from unrepresented groups, she says.

“There’s a burden of justification for both of those appointments,” says Jackman. “And there’s no possible explanation why the justice minister and the prime minister cannot appoint very meritorious individuals who have a lived experience that is different from the dominant culture.”

Source: Overcoming the diversity deficit on federal courts

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Women in Egypt thronging to social media to reveal sexual assaults, hold abusers to account

2020/10/13 Leave a comment

Of note:

In Cairo, secrets long suppressed have been rising to the surface — and with them hopes the country may be experiencing a feminist movement capable of challenging the culture of impunity that has long accompanied gender-based violence in Egypt.

Online testimonials over the summer by hundreds of women on social media accounts offering anonymity have led authorities to open investigations into two alleged rape cases involving young men from wealthy and influential families.

“Egypt is on fire,” said Mozn Hassan, head of the women’s rights organization Nazra for Feminist Studies. “On fire for more than three months talking about different incidents in different sections and layers [of society].”

Social media, she said, has offered Egyptian women a safe “public sphere” that lets them know they are not alone.

In July, that space led to the arrest of a former American University in Cairo (AUC) student named Ahmed Bassem Zaki, accused of raping a number of women and blackmailing them for sexual favours. A Cairo court has set Oct. 14 as a trial date for Zaki.

“We at first just wanted him to admit it, that he did these things,” said Sabah Khodir, an Egyptian writer and poet who was one of the first to post online warnings about Zaki when she started to hear about his alleged behaviour from friends.

It set off a tidal wave with another Instagram account called Assault Police, encouraging women to share any information they had on Zaki.

“Then girls kept coming forward from all over parts of the world,” Khodir said. “We realized we actually have a shot at finally getting a serial rapist and predator in jail in Egypt that has money and power.”

Source: Women in Egypt thronging to social media to reveal sexual assaults, hold abusers to account

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Men accounted for more than two-thirds of Order of Canada appointments last year

2020/10/09 Leave a comment

I have been tracking Order of Canada appointments since 2013 from a diversity perspective.

While my initial interest was sparked by the Harper government’s effort to increase the number of appointments from Western Canada and the business community (limited success), I increasingly viewed this a an integration indicator and one that likely reflected other award and recognition program (my 2017 detailed review can be found here: The Order of Canada and diversity):

Less than a third of Canadians appointed to the Order of Canada last year were women — a figure that represents the widest gender imbalance in appointments to the order in years.

Analysis by diversity researcher Andrew Griffith, a former senior government official, shows that 71.4 per cent of appointees in 2019 were men. The low number of women among the 2019 appointees — just 28.6 per cent of the total — and the low number of visible minorities — just 5.4 per cent — show the Order of Canada falling short of representing Canada’s diverse population.

Griffith said there may be a lag effect because the Order of Canada tends to be given in recognition of a lifetime’s body of work — and high-profile women were scarce in many fields until relatively recently. But he said he expected to see progress toward gender parity among Order of Canada recipients mirror the advances experienced by women in the public service.

“It indicates where the country has been because these are previous contributions that are being recognized, and yet it says how far we have to go to ensure that, at the honours level where we recognize Canadians, that we’re actually recognizing a broad, diverse spectrum of Canadians,” he said.

A lack of balance

Griffith looked into Order of Canada appointments since 2013. He said he found that, on average, the gender balance on appointments over the seven-year period was 65.6 per cent male and 34.4 per cent female. The appointments came closest to gender balance in 2015, when 54.4 per cent were men and 45.6 per cent were women.

Over the seven-year period Griffith studied, members of visible minorities made up an average of 4.8 per cent of Order of Canada appointments — well below the 22.3 per cent of the population who identified as visible minority in the 2016 census.

In that same period, Indigenous nominees comprised 4.7 per cent of the appointments — very close to the 4.9 per cent identified as Indigenous in the last census.

More than 7,000 people have been invested in the Order of Canada since it was launched in 1967 as one of the country’s highest civilian honours. Appointments are made by the governor general based on recommendations by an independent advisory council, which reviews nominations and holds confidential discussions before voting on each nominee.

Natalie Babin Dufresne, spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, said there has been some progress toward gender balance in the Order of Canada in recent years. She noted that just 21 per cent of the appointees in 2000 were women.

Although the number of women nominated to the Order of Canada has remained steady at about 200 a year, out of roughly 500 to 800 total nominations, Babin Dufresne said the success rate for nominations is higher for women — 72 per cent, compared to 58 per cent for men.

“Progress remains slow, and new initiatives continue to be developed to improve this situation so that we can achieve results with the Order of Canada that are comparable to other programs, such as the Sovereign Medal for volunteers, where close to 48 per cent of the recipients are women,” she said in an email.

“Data collection to get a better understanding of historical trending for other diversity groups began during the current mandate, and will offer us some important insights in the coming years to better target our initiatives and efforts to increase representation for all groups, including gender, visible minority and Indigenous representation.”

Babin Dufresne said modernizing the broader Canadian honours system is one of Gov. Gen. Julie Payette’s top priorities.

While there is no mention of diversity representation in the Order of Canada’s constitution and regulations, Babin Dufresne said steps have been taken to boost its diversity, such as new data collection on gender identity, disabilities, visible minority and Indigenous status, and a new, more user-friendly nomination platform.

She also pointed out that all Order of Canada ceremonies are now livestreamed to boost visibility and accessibility.

Babin Dufresne said the best way to improve diversity in a merit-based public program like the Order of Canada is to get more Canadians to nominate more people — which is why her office is working to increase the public profile of all of Canada’s honours programs and to make the nomination process user-friendly.

Sarah Kaplan, director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Toronto, said more must be done to make the Order of Canada reflect the country.

‘Not acceptable’

“It’s not acceptable, in the Canadian context — a country that considers itself to be a land of opportunity, a land of equal opportunity, a land that pays attention to the diverse communities that exist within Canada — that we would see the awards going mainly to men,” she said.

Kaplan rejected the notion that bringing in quotas could erode the merit-based selection process, arguing that there are plenty of Canadians from all backgrounds who have made extraordinary contributions to Canadian society who aren’t recognized because they don’t fit the “historical template.”

“Our definition of merit is one that is self-reinforcing, about giving the same elite people the same awards. And so, when people say it should be based on merit, they’re not recognizing the fact that the idea of merit itself has been designed by the people in positions of privilege to reinforce their privilege and keep others out,” she said.

Rideau Hall said the Order of Canada advisory council makes appointment recommendations based on merit, but also takes factors like diversity into account.

The spring meeting of the advisory council was postponed due to the pandemic so the July appointments were not named. A new group of appointees is to be announced later this year.

Source: Men accounted for more than two-thirds of Order of Canada appointments last year

Filed under Aboriginal, gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Ottawa adding new census questions on gender, Indigenous people, linguistic and ethnic minorities

2020/07/18 Leave a comment

Not surprising. The 2021 Census will also include religion (done every 10 years):

The 2021 census will for the first time count transgender Canadians and include questions designed to get better data on Indigenous communities, linguistic minorities and ethnic groups.

According to federal officials, the new census questionnaires will address long-standing requests from groups who said the previous census questionnaire did not count everyone in their communities or that the numbers were imprecise.

In particular, the changes will affect the way Statistics Canada counts members of Indigenous communities, ethnic communities such as Jews, transgender Canadians and members of anglophone and francophone minorities. In the case of linguistic minorities, the new short-form and long-form census questionnaires are designed to improve their access to public schools, as guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the federal officials because they were not authorized to speak about the matter before the new questionnaires are made public in the Canada Gazette on Friday afternoon.

While the 2016 census asked people to list their sex as male or female, the officials said the 2021 census will ask a question about the respondent’s sex at birth and another question about the person’s current gender, marking the first time the census has counted transgender Canadians.

It will also aim to provide more data on Indigenous groups, who will no longer be referred to in the document as Aboriginal. For example, the new questions will help identify the beneficiaries of Inuit land-claims agreements and determine the number of members of the Métis Nation.

Officials said the government will also address criticism from Jewish groups who said a change to the question about ethnic identity in the 2016 census left them drastically underrepresented. With the omission of “Jewish” as one of the listed examples of ethnic ancestry, the official count of Canada’s Jewish population fell from about 309,000 in 2011 to little more than 143,000 in 2016. As a result, the government will add a significant number of examples of ethnic origin to the 2021 census, which will once again include “Jewish” as a possible answer.

After coming to power in 2015, the Trudeau government made it mandatory for recipients of the long-form census to fill out the questionnaire, reversing a decision by the Harper government.

A new law adopted in 2017 gave Statistics Canada more independence, but the power to determine census questions remains in the hands of the government, with Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains acting as the lead minister on the file.

Federal officials said cabinet recently approved changes to both the short-form census questionnaire, which goes to 80 per cent of households, and the more detailed long-form questionnaire, which goes to the remaining 20 per cent. Statistics Canada had set this month as the deadline for the final versions to be approved in order to be ready for next year’s census.

Both will include new questions about education history as part of an effort to determine precisely how many Canadian children are eligible to go to an English-language school in Quebec or a French-language school in the rest of the country.

The proponents of the census changes have argued that provinces and school boards currently lack the necessary data to plan the construction of new schools, leading to a shortage of spaces in many parts of the country. They say the new questions will help them obtain an exact count of Canadians known as “rights-holders,” who have the right to send their children to either French- or English-language public schools.

By making all Canadians answer questions about language skills and schooling history, Ottawa will be providing linguistic minorities with another victory on the education front. Last month, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that, even when their numbers are relatively small, linguistic minorities have a right to their own high-quality schools.

Source: Ottawa adding new census questions on gender, Indigenous people, linguistic and ethnic minorities

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Trans woman required to identify as ‘male’ by Immigration Canada: ‘It was agony’

2020/07/14 Leave a comment

As a refugee claimant only, based on their foreign passport. If their claim is accepted, Canadian documents allow for gender identity.

Given the apparent inconsistencies between the IRB and IRCC regarding the policy and its implementation, expect this will change but given the large numbers of temporary residents (students, workers) this would apply to, implementation may be more complex than it would appear:

The last thing Naomi Chen’s wife said to her before she fled Hong Kong was “don’t cry too much — Canada is the place where you can live as who you are.”

But this, it turns out, was untrue for Chen, a trans woman who says she was persecuted in Hong Kong because of her gender.

After arriving in Toronto Chen made a refugee claim and was then told by Canadian immigration officials she must be identified as “male” on her refugee protection claimant document, her only valid piece of identification in Canada.

Global News has agreed to use a pseudonym for Chen because of fears she could be persecuted if sent back to Hong Kong.

“I was stunned. I was crying. I was distressed,” Chen said. “This is not something I expected.”

According to government policy, all information on an asylum seeker’s immigration documents “must reflect what is indicated on their foreign passport.”

This is true even in cases such as Chen’s, where a person receives hormone therapy, has undergone sex reassignment surgery, and where their lived gender no longer conforms with the sex they were assigned at birth.

It’s also true for all temporary resident documents issued by the government, including work and study permits.

“It’s discrimination,” Chen said.

Since coming to Canada, Chen has felt isolated and dreads leaving her apartment because she might be asked to show her ID that says she’s a man, essentially outing her as a trans woman.

She also said being misgendered by the Canadian government makes her feel less valued than other people.

“I’m so afraid to live as a woman here,” she said.

Right to self-identify

The Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on: sex, race, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Ontario Human Rights Code also prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex or gender identity.

“A person’s self-defined gender identity is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom,” reads an Ontario Human Rights Commission policy on preventing discrimination based on gender identity and expression.

“For legal and social purposes, a person whose gender identity is different from their birth-assigned sex should be treated according to their lived gender.”

The federal government allows citizens, permanent residents and refugees whose claims are accepted, meaning they’re allowed to stay in Canada permanently, to change their sex or “gender identifier” on official travel documents, such as a passport or permanent resident card, by completing a one-page form.

Yet for refugee claimants whose cases have not yet been decided — even those whose claims are based solely on alleged persecution due to their status as an intersex or LGBTQ2 person — the only way they can change their documents to reflect their lived gender is if they first change the information on their foreign passport, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s policy.

But this is impossible in Chen’s case because she fled Hong Kong due to the persecution she experienced there, including the alleged theft of her business by family members after she came out as a trans woman.

Chen married a woman in Hong Kong before she transitioned. And because same-sex marriage is illegal in Hong Kong, even if she were able to change her original passport, which she can’t, she fears this would invalidate her marriage.

“It’s simply unconscionable that the Canadian government would knowingly contribute to a process that discriminates against individuals based on their gender identity and gender expression,” said Chen’s lawyer, Ashley Fisch.

Fisch also believes the government’s policy violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by failing to provide “equal treatment under the law” for trans and gender diverse refugee claimants and by perpetuating the types of hardships they’re forced to endure in other countries.

“I just feel sorry for the poor woman,” said Amanda Ryan, outreach committee chair for Gender Mosaic, an Ottawa-based trans support organization.

Ryan believes recent changes to federal human rights law could be a basis for extending the right to self-identify to refugee claimants and temporary residents. She said education — both in and outside government — is key to expanding protections for the trans community.

“When you start talking to people and they start learning about trans issues, there’s an awful lot of sympathy and understanding for us,” Ryan said.

“People that don’t have to deal with a trans person simply don’t have that information. That’s ignorance in the true sense of the word.”

Trans and intersex refugees at greater risk

After arriving in Canada and undergoing initial screening to determine if they are eligible to make an asylum claim, would-be refugees are given their refugee ID, which must conform with their foreign passport.

Claimants must then submit their formal claim to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).

The required paperwork asks claimants what sex appears on their foreign passport. However, contrary to Immigration Canada’s policy, claimants are told they can self-identify on IRB documents if their passport does not conform with their lived gender.

IRB adjudicators are instructed to refer to claimants by their preferred pronouns, including in written decisions, even if this does not match their foreign passport. The Board’s guidelines also acknowledge that not recognizing a person’s lived gender can lead to serious consequences.

“Trans and intersex individuals may be particularly vulnerable to systemic discrimination and acts of violence due to their non-conformity with socially accepted norms,” the guidelines say.

Dr. June Lam, a psychiatrist at the adult gender identity clinic at Toronto’s Centre of Addiction and Mental Health, said misgendering trans and gender diverse people can contribute to negative mental health outcomes, including increased suicidal thoughts and actions.

“It’s like we’re recreating the systemic oppression that they’re trying to escape by coming to Canada,” Lam said.

“These barriers really reinforce that even our society views their life, their identity as less valuable.”

While Lam believes Canada is generally a much safer place for LGBTQ2 people than many other countries around the world, he said being forced to use an ID that outs someone as having a different birth-assigned sex than their lived gender puts them at greater risk of physical and psychological harm.

He also cites research that found having a government-issued ID that reflects a person’s lived gender significantly reduces the likelihood of suicidal thoughts and actions among trans and gender diverse people.

“It’s almost like transgender folks have to proove themselves over and over again before our government and our society believes they are who they are,” he said.

Policy sometimes ignored

When Chen was first issued her refugee ID she was told in person by the Canada Border Services Agency that it must conform with her Hong Kong passport, in accordance with government policy.

Chen’s lawyer then sent a letter to the government requesting the ID be reissued with her correct gender, but the request was denied.

“We regret to inform you that refugee claimants are not able to request a change in gender,” a manager from Immigration Canada wrote.

But nearly identical requests have been accepted in the past, said Adrienne Smith, a Toronto immigration lawyer who specializes in LGBTQ2 refugee claims.

Smith knows this because the letter Chen’s lawyer sent the government was based on a template she wrote several years ago. Smith said she’s used this letter on multiple occasions to persuade immigration officials to issue documents in a claimant’s lived gender.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Smith said. “A trans refugee claimant shouldn’t need to have a lawyer that understands trans-specific issues in order to get access to a basic right.”

Global News asked the government to explain why refugee claimants’ documents must reflect the information on their foreign passports and whether this policy systemically discriminates against trans and non-binary asylum seekers. The government did not answer either of these questions.

The government also did not say whether it believes that insisting that non- Canadian citizens and temporary residents be issued documents that don’t align with their lived gender violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Everyone should be free to lead happy and authentic lives in Canada, regardless of how they identify, or who they love,” said Kevin Lemkay, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino.

Lemkay said the minister has made reviewing gender identity requirements for government-issued documents a priority. This includes the refugee protection claimant document.

The government has also passed legislation, including changes to the Canadian Human Rights Act, that make it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity and expression, while introducing the “X” gender marker on passports and permanent resident cards.

“We remain steadfast in our dedication to inclusion and equality,” Lemkay said.

Despite being misgendered by the government, Chen is determined to remain in Canada. She believes Canada is a place where she can live a life free from the type of persecution she experienced in Hong Kong.

She also hopes that one day she’ll be reunited with her wife — who was denied an entry visa to Canada because of questions about the purpose of her visit, and who does not have a Hong Kong passport, which would exempt her from visa requirements — and that they’ll be able to live together in a same-sex marriage.

“I came to Canada for the freedom of my soul,” Chen said.

Source: Trans woman required to identify as ‘male’ by Immigration Canada: ‘It was agony’

Filed under gender, Immigration Tagged with ,

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