Corey Levine has helped bring many Afghan women MPs and their families to safety in Canada. She will speak about her experiences at the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society event honouring her. <\/i>(photo from Corey Levine)<\/i><\/p>\n
The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society\u2019s Civil Courage Award honours individuals who help others escape from unjust and dangerous situations at great risk to themselves, as both Sweden\u2019s Raoul Wallenberg and Japan\u2019s Chiune Sugihara did during the Second World War to help Jews flee the Nazis. On Jan. 19, at the society\u2019s 20th\u00a0Annual Raoul Wallenberg Day event, this year\u2019s award will be given to Corey Levine, who has been helping women flee Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
There were 69 women in Afghanistan\u2019s parliament when the country experienced a brief period of democracy. When Kabul fell and the Taliban retook control on Aug. 15, 2021, these women had to flee or they would have been murdered. Most of them made it to Greece, Albania or elsewhere, where they lived until they were able to make their way to Canada or the United States.\u00a0Others made it to Pakistan, where they live in hiding, in danger of being deported back to Afghanistan if found.<\/p>\n
Levine has been doing human rights work\u00a0in war zones\u00a0for about 30 years. \u201cI really embrace the idea of tikkun olam<\/i>, that it is our individual responsibility to contribute to repairing the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her first trip to Afghanistan, in March 2002, was as a consultant with the Canadian International Development Agency\u2019s peace-building unit. \u201cThe Taliban had just been routed, and Western countries were starting to engage,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That was the start of a 23-year-and-counting relationship with the country, both as a consultant with various international organizations and personally.<\/p>\n
The last time she was on a paid contract in Afghanistan, it was with UN Women. She was there for nine months, \u201cseconded to work with Afghan women parliamentarians, to support them and develop some strategies, etc. I left Afghanistan six weeks before the Taliban took over the second time and, basically, from the time that I left, but especially the day that Kabul fell, Aug. 15, 2021, people started contacting me. At first, it was Afghan friends and colleagues \u2013 because I\u2019d been going there for 20 years at that point \u2013 asking me for help. And I said, I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ll see what I can do. I couldn\u2019t have imagined then that it would end up being a 24\/7 crisis management [project] that I ended up doing for the past three-and-a-half years all on my own, voluntarily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calls for help started coming from people Levine didn\u2019t know. \u201cIn a way, it was almost like an underground railway,\u201d she said, with so many people, as individuals or as part of organizations, trying to get out of the country, Afghans at risk of being killed by the Taliban. Helping people escape was unfamiliar work for many of the people involved. \u201cWe were all kind of flying by the seat of our pants,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to get people into safe houses. That\u2019s only a temporary Band-Aid solution. It\u2019s how to help them afterwards, how to help them reach safety. And then I started organizing private sponsorship. Canada has this unique program where groups of people in a community can come together and raise money and privately sponsor refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levine has managed to organize seven private sponsorship groups in Victoria, where she lives, and is working on an eighth. Amid this work, she returned to Afghanistan in June 2022. While there on that trip, she tried to help some of the women MPs who had been left behind, and this work became part of her ongoing efforts to rescue at-risk Afghans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn September 2022,\u201d said Levine. \u201cI went to a conference in Ottawa and I met a few MPs…. I don\u2019t know how, but I put together an all-party group of MPs that were interested in helping me get these women out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resulting group comprises Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois citizenship and immigration critic Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, who was\u00a0a co-chair of the Special Committee on Afghanistan; Conservative MP Alex Ruff, who\u00a0twice served in Afghanistan with Canada\u2019s military and was\u00a0also on the special committee; Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski, who had spoken out, even before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, about the need for Canada to help Afghans; Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who used to be Levine\u2019s MP and who had already helped Levine in this area; NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson and Liberal MP Leah Taylor Roy, who were also keen to participate, said Levine.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the women we were trying to help, and the event is dedicated to her memory, she was killed by the Taliban in January 2023,\u201d said Levine, referring to Mursal Nabizada. \u201cShe was one of the women I had met when I was in Afghanistan in June of 2022…. Before that, we had been working under the radar with the government…. But then, once her death happened, because it was international news … the MPs released a statement about it, which got a lot of traction. The government stepped up after that, and we went back underground, so to speak,\u201d mainly for security reasons.<\/p>\n
However, the MP group has since become more public \u2013 a CBC documentary on their work aired last October. Its members continue to negotiate for more\u00a0Afghan women MP\u00a0refugees to be able to come to Canada and, from their efforts so far, seven Afghan families are here safely, said Levine. \u201cOne of them is going to be speaking at the event on the 19th.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Afghan MP Gulalai Mohammadi, who escaped to Canada with her family last year, is that speaker. In addition to Mohammadi and Levine, May will also participate, representing the MP panel.<\/p>\n
The Jan. 19, 1:30 p.m., event will take place at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture. Admission is free, but donations are welcome, with donations of $36 or more receiving a tax receipt. A reception will follow the program.<\/p>\n