Thank you so much.

Honourable members, thank you very much for the opportunity to share some of Oxfam's experience in working with youth and children. At Oxfam we believe the definition of development must include the enjoyment of rights by all people. My remarks today will centre on active citizenship, which Oxfam believes is the foundation for rights-based development. I'm going to focus particularly on young women and girls.

I know that you know a lot of the statistics, but I'll just cite a couple. Youth unemployment is clearly an urgent problem. The figure I saw was estimated in 2010 at 12.6% globally as compared with 4.8% for adults. For young women it is even worse. Their labour force participation is only 40.8%, according to the same source, compared with 56.3% for young men. Literacy rates have really improved over the last two decades, but still today young women account for 61% of total illiterate youth. Also, if you're a young woman between the ages of 15 and 19 living in a rural area today in Zimbabwe, Senegal, or Colombia, there's a one in five chance that you have already had a child.

In Oxfam's view, the challenges young people and children face are rooted in unequal power relations. Youth are under-represented in forums, whether formal or traditional, where decisions that affect them are taken. At the same time, their needs and insights are ignored or unknown by decision-makers in these same spaces. Young women and girls are doubly affected. As we know, women in every country in the world are faced with the myriad effects of gender discrimination that are rooted in unequal gender power relations.

In terms of economic development, Oxfam applauds and supports increased efforts worldwide to promote the economic empowerment of women and young women, but understanding root causes of inequality, in our opinion, is critical. Preliminary research we have conducted, for example, has uncovered evidence of women experiencing increases in domestic violence when their income grows.

Understanding root causes is also critical to meaningfully addressing barriers to participation. Young people and children, particularly young women and girls, may be experiencing violence in the home or in the community, preventing them from benefiting from excellent programs. The care burdens often shouldered by women and their daughters mean they don't have time to present themselves for opportunities that may interest them, but changing the time of day a training class is offered so that a young woman can attend often leads to adding an extra hour of work to her day.

The point is that we need to be aware of these often hidden realities. Indeed, we would argue that a good program would, by definition, include power analysis as a first step to uncover those realities. As well, our programs must provide moral and technical support to women and youth to enable them to take leadership roles to address the barriers and human rights violations, like violence, that affect them. Oxfam knows that youth and women's organizations also invariably take up broader community and social development challenges. Energy and dedication are always unleashed when people are confident their voices are being heard, and are supported to strengthen their skills in designing and implementing solutions.

For example, young women and young men are playing extremely active and transformative roles in Oxfam programs to change attitudes, norms, and behaviours that perpetuate violence against women and girls. They work to raise awareness with their peers in school and on the playing field, and are bravely engaging with power holders in their families, communities, and societies to condemn violence and to question the unequal gender relations that sustain it.

This is essential long-term work. As recently as 2011 a nationwide study conducted in Bangladesh revealed that being taught from an early age to be submissive and self-sacrificing causes women to remain silent about domestic violence they either suffer or observe. In Zambia the constitution allows for the application of customary law, which in some communities sanctions discriminatory and dangerous practices such as early marriage.

To end, we'd like to offer a few ideas for how Canada might orient its approach to promote the rights of youth and children in the developing world. I have three.

The first is to pay it forward. Include and fund women's rights organizations in youth programming. For example, Oxfam's raising her voice program in Pakistan has supported women's organizations in their tireless advocacy for stronger legislation to protect youth and children, such as the Criminal Law 2011 Act, which deals with anti-women customary practices.

It is difficult indeed to imagine how child, early, and forced marriage can be ended in Pakistan or elsewhere without women's organizations, yet these are shamefully underfunded. In 2013, the Association for Women's Rights in Development surveyed 740 organizations and found that their average income was just $20,000 annually. A Canadian fund for women's organizations would be welcomed with shouts of joy around the world and would be, we believe, part of an effective strategy to protect children and youth.

Second, provide more open-ended funding for young women's leadership, especially women from marginalized groups. Oxfam's AMAL program, which means “hope”, recently introduced an innovation fund open to young and marginalized women in places such as Yemen and Tunisia to encourage them to propose new and innovative ways to make transformative change. The funding can also be used for building their confidence and their capacity, as well as to fund learning and knowledge-sharing activities, all essential, in our opinion.

Third, significantly increase funding to and the visibility of your support for programs to end violence against women and girls. Considerably more funding is needed to do more work on transforming attitudes, norms, and behaviours that perpetuate violence, to provide more and better services to survivors, and to ensure that legislation is introduced, strengthened, and effectively implemented. Violence is the most pervasive indicator of the inequality experienced by girls and young women on a daily basis.

At Oxfam we take considerable pride in Canada’s long history of being a leader on gender equality and a champion of civil society organizations as essential democratic actors. This is a strong legacy upon which to build an effective and sustainable youth strategy that is so urgently needed, given current demographic trends. These active citizens, youth, and women's organizations tell us they want nothing less than the transformation of their communities and societies. They look forward to Canada's leadership to support the work they are doing and the work they still dream of doing.

Thank you for the opportunity to exchange with you today.

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