The Canadian government is refusing to fund abortion for war rape victims.

The Conservative government is refusing to let development funding go to projects that provide abortions for the victims of war rape and child brides .

International Development Minister Christian Paradis says that the Conservative government’s policy will follow the same logic of its $3-billion allocated to maternal and child health at the 2010 G8 summit in Muskoka. At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said none of the those dollars would go toward abortion services because ‘there were enough other worthy initiatives to support’.[1]

War rapes are rapes committed by soldiers, combatants, or civilians during armed conflict or war, or during a military occupation. It also includes girls and women who are forced into prostitution or sexual slavery by an occupying power.

Rape is frequently used as a means of psychological warfare. Today, rape and sexual slavery are recognized under the Geneva Convention as crimes against humanity and war crimes.[2] Other countries in the world use development budgets to care for these most vulnerable women, but our Conservative government is refusing to prioritize the reproductive rights of women.

Women, regardless of where they live, deserve access to these services. We want our government to follow science, not ideology, in developing policy.

Please join me in signing this petition to the Canadian government to ensure that Canada’s taxpayer-funded development budget funds abortions for war rape and child brides.

Further reading:
Just last year, a Conservative motion was put forward to criminalize abortion in Canada. Essentially, it was intended to reopen the debate on the legal definition of a human being under the Criminal Code - a Supreme Court decision decided 25 years ago. But tens of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast to coast came together to stand up for the rights that women and our allies have been fighting to protect for decades and the motion didn’t pass.

Sources
1. No development dollars for abortions after child marriage or war rape, Christian Paradis says. National Post. October 4, 2013. http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/04/no-development-dollars-for-abortions-after-child-marriage-or-war-rape-christian-paradis-says/
2. Rape and Other forms of Sexual Violence. International Committee of the Red Cross. http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter32_rule93
3. Stop the covert attempt to criminalize abortion. Leadnow.ca. http://www.leadnow.ca/defend-our-reproductive-rights