Sudanese refugees face obstacles, limited support

More than four million people have fled the conflict in Sudan since it erupted in 2023, mostly to neighbouring countries where they endure severe hunger.  Many wish to leave the region. How is the outside world dealing with this refugee crisis?  What are the deciding factors in who may leave and who must stay?

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Charlotte Jean-Gilles talks with experts about the way in which Canada is responding to the needs of those who are trying to escape the violence.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

Transcript

Intro by Derek MacCuish:  More than four million people have fled the conflict in Sudan since it erupted in 2023, mostly to neighbouring countries where they endure severe hunger.  Many wish to leave the region. How is the outside world dealing with this refugee crisis?  What are the deciding factors in who may leave and who must stay?

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Charlotte Jean-Gilles talks with experts about the way in which Canada is responding to the needs of those who are trying to escape the violence.

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Hi listeners, my name is Charlotte Jean-Gilles. As someone who has learned about, and felt the urgency of, Sudan's humanitarian crisis, for this podcast I decided to explore Canada's ambivalent relationship with the Sudanese diaspora and its treatment of Sudanese refugees. I started by discussing the idea with Dr. Khalid Mustafa Medani, Associate Professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at McGill University. In our talks he told me that there is a saying in Sudan, that Sudan is a teacher. So my goal and hope for this podcast is to learn from Sudan, from the Canadian-Sudanese community, and better understand the inner workings of the relationship between Canada and the Sudanese diaspora. I spoke with three well-informed people about the political landscape and the Canadian-Sudanese with whom they interact, touching on some of the legal aspects, personal hardships, artistic inputs and the gendered reality of the struggle. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: My first interviewee is Mr. Imad Satti who works for the Sudanese Canadian Communities Association also known as the SCCA. This organization is doing crucial work by working with the government, providing information about the changes in Canadian policy and offering support to Sudanese.  

Imad Satti: First of all, my name is Imad Satti. I am based in Edmonton, Alberta. In the organization, we have been campaigning for Sudan, to stop the war in Sudan. We have basically few major items:  to ask Canada and the international community to intervene and stop the war in Sudan, and also help the affected people, humanitarian aid for the people who are displaced, inside Sudan and who are displaced outside of Sudan. So all these people, they need help. And the other thing is immigration and helping people who want to bring some of their families to Canada, also helping them.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: The next guest is Ms. Duha Elmardi.  

Duha Elmardi: So, my name is Duha Elmardi. I use she/her pronouns. I'm a member of the Sudanese community here, in Tiohtià:ke, Montreal. I'm a core organizer with the Sudan Solidarity Collective, which is a diasporic Sudanese group in Canada that works to support grassroots formations in Sudan right now. I don't necessarily identify as an activist. I mean, it's something that I do, but I also just see it as a responsibility that we all have. So it's not so much a job or a title or anything like that. I think it's just that many of us realize that we have a responsibility in this world to work on improving it for our communities today, and, of course, for our future generations.  

Duha Elmardi: I started being more involved in social issues back when I was still in Sudan. I was a student at the time, and I think it really mostly came out of the realities of living in Sudan, especially living in Sudan as a woman in the time of the Bashir regime, having to deal with a lot of deeply embedded misogyny, and especially on a state level. And also seeing a lot of incredible women around me who have been educating themselves and educating our societies for so long and working so hard to reject these kinds of laws and help us see better worlds for ourselves. 

Duha Elmardi: You know I came in 2018, so it was a few years back. I was in the US first. Actually, I was doing a fellowship in the United States for a year, and then the year after that, I applied for asylum in the US, because that's when the civil disobedience had started back then in Sudan, and the political situation was not moving in a good direction. I entered Canada from what's known as Roxham Road. It is now closed, I believe, and it is a way that many people, many migrants, crossed into Canada from the United States. I entered in Trump’s first year, I was there in Obama’s last year of power. I think for me, it was just very traumatizing and not great in any way. There were many, many instances in which I really feared for my life. I was also a hijabi, you know, hijabi, black woman at the time, it was no joke, it was really, really hard. I've had physical attacks. There was obviously no way for me to go back to Sudan. There was no way for me to renew my passport. My passport had expired, which meant that I couldn’t apply for a visa anywhere, unless I went back to Sudan and reapplied for a passport. It just wasn't the option for me at the time. And so, my only option, in terms of survival, really, at the time, was to figure out a way to get out of the US and find a place that is more safe.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Lastly, I spoke with Ms. Karina Juma who helped elucidate the various ways in which the law impacts the situation of Sudanese refugees.  

Karina Juma: My name is Karina Juma, and I'm currently an articling student, meaning I'm training to become a lawyer, and I anticipate getting called to the bar in a few months from now, so just in late May, early June.  I'm just on the tail end of articling.  I work in an immigration and refugee law firm called Heron law offices, as the name suggests, we do a lot of work around different immigration applications, whether it's economic based or Family Class sponsorship. And my passion, specifically, is refugee law, and that's what I hope to build my practice around. So I'm really passionate about different refugee pathways, humanitarian pathways, and I came into this work with a background in, of course, law school, but I also have a Master's of International Affairs specializing in health, displacement and humanitarian policy. So this job really helps me blend together all those passions, and I'm really excited to be speaking to you today and telling you more about what I know about refugee law in Canada. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Sudan has been coined by several reputable agencies as the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. The crisis started in 2023 when the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) and the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) engaged in a struggle for power. Since then, the UN released concerning numbers about the repercussions of the war. I quote: “12.7 million have been forcibly displaced, and 24.6 million are facing acute hunger”. In response to this dire situation, Canada has opened up pathways for Sudanese refugees to enter the country. However, they require Sudanese to have certain paperwork like biometric documents, which none of the hospitals or health centers in Sudan are able to provide. This leaves Sudanese asylum claimants in lambo. There are also other issues which our guests will touch on. But, first, Ms. Juma will provide more clarity on the pathways and requirements for refugees seeking to immigrate to Canada.  

Karina Juma: As far as I know, for the Sudanese refugees, or Sudanese nationals in general, there have been different pathways introduced. So, there are the temporary pathways for people from Sudan who are already in Canada but who came as visitors, and they're able to extend this status free of charge, or they can opt to change their status from visitor to worker or visitor to student, and they can do so until October of this year. There's also a different pathway for Sudanese nationals who have family in Canada. So if they have a family member who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, and they entered after the conflict worsened on April 15, 2023 but before July 15, 2023 so really short window of time, then those people are able to apply for open work permits, study permits, visitor records, which is once you are here in Canada as a visitor, but you want to extend your status, you wouldn't get a new visitor visa, you would get what's called the visitor record. So it's just a different type of document to show that you have the ability to stay here.They can also apply for a temporary resident permit, which is basically if a person doesn't have another pathway to stay in Canada, maybe they don't meet the requirements of a student, they don't meet the requirements of a worker, then they could apply for an exceptional stay under a temporary resident permit, which is more of a humanitarian type of status. And then another pathway is, if you're already here and your family member is a citizen or PR, you can apply for PR as a spouse or as a child.  

Karina Juma: So now, to move to the more permanent pathways, there is refugee resettlement like I have just given you an overview of. And, just yesterday, actually, the federal government announced that it is committing to resettle more Sudanese refugees: 4000 government assisted refugees by the end of 2026 and then 700 through private sponsorship. The difference with the humanitarian pathway for the family based pathway is that this is for people who lived in Sudan when the conflict worsened in April 2023 and they have to be either the child, grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and the family member must be willing to support their application. In this case, they are not refugees because they're not claiming under a ground of persecution, and they were in Sudan. In order to be a refugee, you have to have crossed an international border. So for this humanitarian based family pathway, we're talking more about internally displaced people who are still in Sudan, they couldn't leave for whatever reason, or they're just displaced within their community. The refugee resettlement is for people who have left Sudan and are living in a neighboring country, perhaps. So that's to distinguish the different types of pathways. To give you some examples of differences between the two sorts of groups; we have a smaller capacity for Sudan, the 4000 government assisted refugees and 700 privately sponsored refugees, compared that to Syria, for example, where we had over 100,000 people settled since 2015 so over 10 years, and that was through a mix of government assisted and privately sponsored refugees. And there's also another program called the blended visa office referred or bevor stream, which is not really used very often, but it's a blend where the government provides financial support and then the sponsors, private sponsors, provide the settlement support. 

Karina Juma: For the humanitarian pathway, the family pathway, not refugee resettlement. We do have the family anchor requirement, that just means that the person coming to Canada needs to have a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident family member in Canada. We saw this also for the Gaza temporary resident visa program, as well as for the Colombian and the Haitian Venezuelan program. So it's not just an open PR permanent resident program accessible to just anyone. It excludes anybody who doesn't have that family link here, and also people who are not permanent residents cannot serve as a family link. For example, if you just became a if you were a refugee and you're in the process of waiting for your permanent residency, which can take, I think the latest numbers are around two years or more than that, to get your permanent residence once your claim has been accepted, which is an incredibly long amount of time in that waiting period you're not eligible to sponsor to be to act as that family anchor for your family member in Sudan.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Here’s what our two Sudanese guests had to say about Canada’s response.  

Imad Satti: Yeah, there are some good things, but I think Canada hasn't done enough yet. But, they have donated some money for humanitarian aid, for example, that’s one good thing which we do appreciate, but that's not enough compared to the conflict itself. Basically, almost more than half of the people in Sudan have been displaced and the people who are not displaced are also greatly affected, because the economy has totally stopped. Even if there's some peace in that area, the economy stopped. You cannot import or export to the area because of the conflict. So there's a famine going on, and there's health issues, a health crisis,  safety issues. All these people who are not directly affected with it all, they are affected.Yes, it's not enough. I think Canada should intervene more with the international community, to push these parties to end the war. So that's the main part, is to stop the war. If the war stops, people can find their way slowly, to stabilize and get back to normal life. Almost every person in Sudan, and who is not even in Sudan, like myself, is also affected by the war. Myself, I need help to help other people. Everyone is affected, so several 100 millions, will do nothing for all these people. Of course, the main thing is they can stop the war. Nobody should be responsible for paying this money, and we understand that. But then the key thing is to stop the war, and then after that, then help some people to go back to normal life. So, the major thing we ask is that they help push hard to stop the war and then help those people in Sudan and outside Sudan. For the humanitarian side.  

Duha Elmardi: But, of course, 1700 applications is quite jarring. It's really quite jarring. We have really seen what they can do when the war in Ukraine started, right? We have seen, of course, rightfully so. It's a great response. And that is the response that we had hoped would happen to the Palestinians, would happen to the Afghans, would happen to the Colombians, to the Haitians, to the Sudanese. But that wasn't the case, and it was too far of a difference, really. It was just not even not comparable in any way. And you could really see the kind of discrimination and who's deemed as a desirable refugee, a refugee that is welcomed, and who is a refugee that is not welcomed.  I mean it’s better than nothing. It’s definitely better than nothing. I want to say that a lot of countries haven’t done as much. Canada is one of the few countries that has actually done a family reunification program. A lot of countries like the UK and US have not done those kinds of programs unfortunately and the Sudanese communities there are still pushing. But again seeing the response they were able to have for Ukrainian refugees and this response where people are asked to come up with ridiculous amounts of money in a short period of time to bring their family to safety is quite ridiculous.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: The low number of places available to Sudanese refugees, in comparison to the magnitude of the crisis, has been brought up time and time again in my interviews. Here’s what Ms. Juma offered an explanation for the disparities between refugees.  

Karina Juma: For Ukraine. We saw an unlimited number of temporary resident visas issued, and so they weren't arriving as refugees, but we had over 300,000 arrivals under this Canada-Ukraine emergency travel program, or the CUAET. For Afghanistan, we had a commitment of 40,000 refugees to be resettled since August 2021. There's also a different pathway for Colombians, Haitians and Venezuelans. Under that pathway, which was a humanitarian PR, not a refugee pathway, 11,000 spaces.  So you can see the differences in the numbers, maybe politically motivated, maybe because of the representation of the different diasporas. Canada has a huge Syrian community, so that may be one of the reasons why we see a lot more uptake in Syrian refugees. Same with Ukrainians. Canada has a long history and relationship with Ukraine. There's no family member requirement for Ukraine. So in this particular context, it might just be, maybe there's a mistrust. Maybe Canada doesn't have an established relationship with Sudan to the same extent it could be that in the past couple of years, there have been situations where Sudanese nationals have made refugee claims and then the government has turned around and said, “you are actually a Kenyan student, and you are impersonating somebody else”. So there have been situations where there have been accusations against Sudanese nationals. So there could be just that suspicion that could have limited their program. So imposing this requirement of having a family member makes it more restrictive, and you have to have that presence in Canada already, and that family anchor has to commit to supporting you in Canada. For example, like in the refugee stream, in the private sponsorship stream, the sponsors will provide one year of settlement and financial support to the refugees who arrive. In this family anchor, it's really similar that the family anchor, or family, if there's multiple people who are family members, they need to have enough income from the previous year, so they need to show that they meet the income requirement, and then they need to have funds in their bank account To show that they have enough money to support the one person or family coming, and it is quite burdensome. So in this particular case, you could have one person as the anchor. But can you just imagine how much responsibility you would have to take on to support a family? Versus in the refugee resettlement context, you would have a group of five, so you have other people to help you out. Here, you're shouldering most of that yourself, and we must remember that often these family anchors were in that refugee situation not too long ago, so maybe they don't have the capacity to shoulder that responsibility. And does that mean that they can't bring their family over here? So it creates some conflict there of who's excluded just because they simply do not have the funds to show and the government said that they will wave certain fees here, so for biometrics, for example, and for the right of permanent residence fee. But in the grand scheme, this waiver is very small. So Biometrics is only $85, the rights of permanent residence fee is $575. So if you look at that, around $700 they're waving. This is so much less than the 9,000 that you have to show as being in your bank account, to support somebody, plus the application fees, so we're talking 1000s of dollars compared to the discount of just a couple of $100 so there really is that discrepancy there. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: While providing this explanation, Ms. Juma touched on two other problematic aspects of Canada’s policy: the financial toll and the biometrics. When asked about the money needed to bring refugees to Canada, here’s what Ms. Elmardi and Mr. Satti had to say about it:  

Duha Elmardi:  And so you can think about all of these numbers and all of these fees, and also at the same time, thinking about the financial responsibility and the financial toll of what I mentioned earlier, of being able to financially support, not only financially support, family members who are now like at the brink of war, people have lost income. People have lost so much, right? People have to flee their homes, leaving everything behind, and sometimes leaving all of their documents, their passports,  all of these things. Some people have had their houses bombed and burned, you know, so they're not able able to retrieve these documents anymore, but because the situation is still ongoing, that means the financial responsibility on the diaspora is still ongoing, but also not just on a family level, but diaspora members are also supporting financially and the maintenance and functioning of community kitchens and neighborhoods, of health clinics, evacuation, shelter needs and so on.  

Imad Satti: But then now we are facing all this. There are delays. This has huge implications. For example, number one, you know, the reality that they are facing all these crises, Sudan, as I mentioned, all these safety issues, famine, no school, health issues, all these issues, plus the stress we are facing here. And it's also the program is self funded, which means I had to put money in the bank. So also our money sitting in the bank, doing nothing. Many people have put in 50,000-70,000 depending on how many people they are supporting. This money is just sitting in the bank. You cannot have interests, you cannot invest. And some people with small businesses, they took out the money, they worried. They thought, okay, maybe after three months they will come and they can reuse the money and continue their business. Now they are stuck. 50,000 - 60,000$ is not a small amount of money to keep in the bank for nothing. We still don't know how long it will be sitting there.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: I asked Ms Juma for more details on the financial requirements of the program.  

Karina Juma: Let's say I'm the anchor, I'm the family anchor, and I want to sponsor one of my relatives through this pathway. I have to show that last year that I made at least $29,380 so that's the minimum requirement for me. But if I don't meet this amount, say I'd made less than $29,000, I could potentially overcome that by showing that I have $9,900  in savings in a Canadian bank account that will be used to support one person coming to Canada, one of my Sudanese family members. As you increase the number of people coming, you have to show more funds. If there's more than one family anchor, then the funds that you have to show also goes up, but then you're splitting it amongst multiple people. So here I can see that on the government's website that you know you can have more than seven people as family anchors. So it really just depends on the size of the family, and then the amounts also for that you need to show for your family members that you will use to support them. It will go up as there are more people. So for example, if I am going to be supporting six people who are coming in, I need to show that I have at least $22,650, in my bank account to give, to support them.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: In addition to this enormous amount of money, we’ve mentioned before the biometrics. Here’s what they entail.  

Karina Juma: So biometrics are just fingerprints and taking a digital photograph of yourself. Most foreign nationals coming to Canada need to get biometrics. There are some exceptions for countries that don't require biometrics, but most of them do. The visa application center in Khartoum is closed. So since the conflict started to get worse in April 2023, Canada sort of shut down its operations in Sudan. So this means that anybody who needs to get biometrics needs to go to another country to have them done. For example, they could go to Egypt, they could go to Ethiopia. But not only is this potentially very expensive for them to leave, and also very dangerous, because there might not be a safe way for them to leave and then to come back. So they're potentially finding themselves stuck outside of Sudan once they leave, or they may not have the proper travel documents. In the past two years, people's passports may have expired, they may have been stolen during lootings, they might have been lost or damaged, and they might have difficulty obtaining these new ones from the government due to the political situation in Sudan right now. So that's another barrier that people have, they do need to go outside to do their biometrics, but do they even have the correct documents to go and if they're still leaving because they're fleeing for their life, they they may face that barrier if they do want to come as a refugee later on, where they do not have travel documents to rely on. I'm not personally aware of any situations where biometrics have been waived. I believe it might have been in the Syrian context, but I don't want to give you a firm answer on that. However, there is an organization called the Canadian Council for refugees, the CCR, and they advocated in this particular context that biometrics, the biometrics requirements, should be waived because, because of these difficulties that people have to leave Sudan, they don't have easy options to submit biometrics. They would be risking their lives by going to do biometrics elsewhere, and so they wrote an open letter to the government last February, just suggesting that they allow people to do biometrics on arrival in Canada. Obviously, the government has not responded to this particular request. They just waived the fees, so they said you still have to do biometrics. But there may have been instances in the past where Canada was a little bit more relaxed, but because of the current enforcement mindset that we're in, and we see a lot more strict controls on borders and migration, it's unlikely that Canada would be willing to take that step, in my opinion, for this particular crisis. 

Imad Satti: We don't mind them doing biometric but if you cannot get it done, then you have to come up with another solution, instead of being stuck there. This is supposed to be looked at as a humanitarian case, because these people literally are waiting. There's no schools for children. Children didn't go to school for many years now, there's no universities, there's no health, there's famine, there's no safety, all these bad things are happening to them. Everyday we have to wake up and face this reality. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: In addition to the structural issues around getting your biometrics done, Mr. Satti emphasized the delays for those who were able to the biometrics: 

Imad Satti: Some of them, they have done. Some of them haven't even received the biometric letter, because you cannot just do a biometric letter. You only do a biometric letter if they send it to you. Some of them haven't received the biometric letter to go and do the biometrics. Some of them have done the biometric and haven’t heard back for a long time. So generally, the process itself, overall, is very slow. We hope that the IRCC will put more officers to process these applications more quickly, and also do something about the one in Sudan. Now we heard that it is going to open in maybe in April, but we are not sure, because we have been promised before a few times and didn't happen, so I'm not confident if it will open or not. It’s  a slow process even if they do biometrics, they still have to wait, the IRCC needs to do something. You wait for one year, even if you open a biometric center, they should prioritize them and do their application very quickly, because they cannot just do biometrics again and wait for six months to get the results. So I hope that they will, they will put in more effort, more planning into how to bring people quickly to Canada. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: As we’ve seen; delays, high fees and a very limited number of places are issues the Sudanese community is mobilizing to fix. Next, the guests will speak on how they are trying to change this situation and the effect it had. The first thing they’ll touch on is the role of the media:  

Imad Satti: Yes, the media plays a big role. The media is one main channel to bring information, to educate people. The media has a big responsibility, a big role on this one. The more we will have more information, and then people will be more willing to help as soon as they understand. In general, citizens are good people,with good hearts, and who are willing to help. But many of them have no idea what's going on. So the media should bring more attention to this conflict. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: On this topic, I asked Elmardi about the framing of the Sudanese Humanitarian crisis as “the forgotten crisis”. This what she had to say:  

Duha Elmardi: I have seen so many comrades and friends challenge the “Forgotten War” narrative, and I definitely agree with them. It is not forgotten by us, it is not forgotten by the Sudanese people at all. It is intentionally ignored by the international community whatever that may be but, there is definitely an intentional ignorance, an intentional lack of coverage. Like when we talk about media coverage and so, of course, it’s not enough. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Moreover, Ms. Elmardi adds on the role of art in resistance in Sudan and in the diaspora.  

Duha Elmardi: Yeah, especially around the revolution, we definitely saw people coming together across all walks of life, and we've seen, I don't know if you saw some of the clippings during the sit-in. There was a 58 day sit-in that happened in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum. And there, you would see all kinds of ways that people were coming together, for example, we see the artistic community coming together and using that space to reclaim, art, because one of the ways that the regime has also been coming at people really hard was to criminalize art as a form of expression, right? So in ‘89 and 1990 when the regime took over, a lot of the cinemas in Sudan were shut down. We actually only until very recently, in the years that we've started having, like, a cinema at a mall or something. But before that, they kind of really shut down all the local forms of artistic storytelling and really criminalized theater and things like that. The ones that they were allowed to prosper afterwards, either had to be things that were approved by the regime, that had messaging from the regime, or things that really thrived underground, which I think were also really, really powerful. It's something that I've witnessed in Sudan, in spite of the heavy repression, there was a really beautiful, artistic scene that was going on, underground, despite the danger. But in the revolution, we're seeing people more boldly, throughout the sit-ins, having murals everywhere, and having little music concerts and jam sessions in the middle of the sit-ins. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: As mentioned by Karina Juma; In February 2025, the efforts of the Sudanese community have paid off as the Canadian government  announced an increase in the spots available in family-based program from 3,250 to 5,000 and more.  

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Lastly, before this podcast episode ends, I want to share with you two things. The first one is a new framing of the relationship between Sudan and its diaspora. Here’s a little gem Ms. Elmardi  shared with me:  

Duha Elmardi:  We collaborated with Cinema Politica Concordia, an amazing organization, and we did a screening for “Sudan, Remember us”, the film is called “Sudan, Remember us” by Hind Meddeb. The film was captured during the sit-in in Sudan, and it's particularly about the role of art. In that film, they were bringing in a lot of the chants, the revolutionary chants that people have, the poetry. You know, we call them “callings”, right? When we went to a protest, people would be chanting things, and you would chant with them. And so the callings that we have in the revolution, but also in the previous waves of uprisings and protests, a lot of times, are inspired by older chants that we've had from from poets like Hamid, from poets like Mahjoub Sharif. And they're usually poetry that was used, or chants that were used, during the 64 uprising which toppled the Abboud regime, and then during the 85 uprising which toppled the Nimeiry regime. And you're seeing them being recycled and used again. And also the younger generation engaging more on those revolutionary chants, and there were also the ones that we're seeing that were new and more present in the context of the 2018-2019 revolution.  So there's definitely a lot I would really, really recommend “Sudan, Remember Us” the film, just to see the artistic element of that. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: The fact that protest chants are called “callings” in Sudan is very insightful because it  emphasizes a dialogue between the caller and the receiver. Whereas a chant is meant to be heard, a call is to be answered. I think this reflects how the Sudanese community operates in its tireless commitment to refugees to carve out more spaces for them in Canada. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: The last thing I wanted to give you, was a way to answer that calling:  

Emad Satti: There have been many petitions going on. So that's one thing to do if people want to help on whatever petition comes across them. Our website may have some petitions going on as well, if people can sign those up, that will help. 

Charlotte Jean-Gilles: Thank you for tuning to this episode of the Human Rights Podcast and thank you so much to the interviewees for their time and help in bringing this episode to life.