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Women at Risk

Resolution number
11
Whereas
  1. Some refugee women in need of resettlement fit the special criteria of the Women at Risk Programme (in general women in urgent need of resettlement (Stream A) or women who require longer term settlement assistance (Stream B));
  2. The CCR has called for the expeditious processing of Stream A cases;
  3. The CCR has affirmed the use of the Joint Assistance Initiative (formerly Joint Assistance Programme) for Stream B cases;
  4. Citizenship and Immigration officials have indicated that refugee women fitting the Stream A of the Women at Risk Programme have been processed as government-assisted refugees (CR1) because CR1 refugees can be processed more quickly than Women at Risk cases;
  5. When Stream A Women at Risk cases are processed as CR1s they are not counted in Women at Risk Programme statistics;
  6. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has not followed up on its review of the Women at Risk Programme nor responded to the recommendations adopted by the CCR in November 1994;
Therefore be it resolved

that the CCR:

  1. Express to Citizenship and Immigration Canada its deep disappointment at the lack of attention to reform of the Women at Risk programme.
  2. Call on the Department to:

            a) Distinguish in its Women at Risk statistics between Stream A and Stream B cases;

            b) Continue to process expeditiously women with urgent protection needs through CR1 channels, but categorize them as Women at Risk Stream A for the purpose of statistics, where they meet the Women at Risk definition;

            c) Continue to process Women at Risk Stream B cases as a subset of the Joint Assistance Initiative, categorized for statistical purposes as Women at Risk Stream B;

  1. Reaffirm its former Women at Risk resolutions, with a particular emphasis on the call to negotiate the use of Reception Centres for the initial reception and (for CR5) matching of Women at Risk.
Subject
Gender
Resettlement policy
Working Group
Overseas Protection and Resettlement