"Indigenous women’s voices missing in Canada’s concerning study of Ecuador FTA", 04 December 2024

...Canada is rushing to finish negotiating a free trade agreement with Ecuador. An important goal is to promote more Canadian mining investment. On November 1st, Canada released a study called the ‘Initial Gender-Based Analysis Plus’.

Amnesty Canada is extremely concerned by serious gaps and omissions in this study, which fails to provide any information about gender-based impacts in Ecuador. The following response was sent to Canada’s Minister for Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development Mary Ng; Minister for Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly; and Minister for Women, Gender Equality and Youth Marci Ien, as well as to Canada’s Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security Jacqueline O’Neill...

In October, prior to the release of the GBA+, Amnesty International Canada co-sponsored an awareness raising visit to Ottawa by a delegation of Indigenous women leaders and water defenders from Ecuador...[,]...to share their serious concerns regarding the human rights violations, increased social conflict, violence against women and girls, and environmental harms posed by Canadian resource extraction in their territories. They voiced their fears about the impacts of more mining, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas like high altitude wetlands – that provide drinking water to tens of thousands of people – and the Amazon region.

These concerns, which were also widely reported in mainstream media, must be included in Canada’s gender-based and environmental assessment. Human rights and gender-informed due diligence requires Canada to identify all potential impacts and make informed decisions to ensure that Canada’s trade policy does not undermine Canadian obligations under international human rights agreements...

...We draw your attention to a dangerous pattern of stigmatization and persecution of women and men who defend land, Indigenous territory and the environment...