MIGRANT WATCH

Caregiver Recruitment: A Front for Women Trafficking?
Congress to probe into Canada’s caregiver program

Through the initiative of progressive party-list legislators, the Philippine Congress will look into reports of abuse of Filipino women professionals working as caregivers in Canada. Alarm has also been raised about the recruitment of caregivers as a front for women trafficking.

By Edwin C. Mercurio
Bulatlat

TORONTO, Canada – Filipino groups in Canada have expressed optimism here that the latest Philippine Congress resolution calling for an investigation into Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) will bring to the fore the unreported cases of abuse against domestic helpers and bring immediate assistance to many neglected migrant workers in other foreign lands.

Filed last March 2, House Resolution 643 directs Congress’ Special Committee on Overseas Workers’ Affairs to conduct an investigation in aid of legislation, into the LCP of the Canadian government. It was introduced by Anakpawis Reps. Crispin Beltran and Rafael V. Mariano; Bayan Muna Reps. Satur Ocampo, Teodoro A. Casino and Joel G. Virador; and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep Liza Largoza-Maza.

The progressive parties recommended measures to protect the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) working as caregivers in Canada as well as in other countries.

The scheduled Congress investigation is also expected to look into reports that the recruitment of Filipino caregivers for Canada has turned into a major source of trafficking of women and girls.

Landmark

Glecy Duran of Siklab, an overseas Filipino workers group here, called the resolution “a landmark resolution for OFWs in Canada.” “Since the LCP was created in 1992, the countless reports of abuse and exploitation of domestic workers have rarely been acknowledged by the Philippine and Canadian governments,” she said.

The resolution reveals that 93 percent of domestic workers under the LCP are Filipino women, thus making it an issue for both the Philippine and Canadian governments to take seriously.

Siklab along with other Filipino organizations under the Vancouver-based National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) and the Toronto-based Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ) have been calling for the removal of the LCP’s mandatory 24-month live-in requirement and for the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to allow workers to enter as permanent residents to prevent abuse and exploitation.

“The LCP steals our dignity and strips us of previous experience and education,” Duran said. “Even after we finish the required 24 months of live-in domestic work within a three-year period, we still continue to be low wage workers trapped as segregated pool of cheap labor.”

The resolution also stressed that despite CIC’s regulations regarding the LCP, authorities do not enforce or monitor standards of working conditions inside the employers’ homes.

Support

In a related development, CASJ offered its support for the forthcoming investigation by the Philippine Congress. CASJ is a non-partisan, political action and advocacy group that promotes social justice.

In a letter of support sent to the authors of the house resolution and members of the Philippine Congress, CASJ Executive Committee Members and Board of Directors stated that “advocating for change in Canada’s flawed Live-in Caregiver Program is one of CASJ’s major priorities.”

In two conferences held by CASJ in Toronto Oct. 30 last year and Jan. 22, participants – both Filipinos and Canadians - voiced out serious concerns about the unjust and oppressive provisions of the LCP. They urged that the LCP be reformed.

Their recommendations included:  the elimination of the live-in requirement of the program; granting immigrant/residency status to caregivers; and Canada’s signing of the UN Convention on the protection of the rights and welfare of all migrant workers.

Canada’s lack of a national daycare program and the need for cheap yet highly educated and caring nannies and caregivers and the Philippines’ desperate efforts to send as many contract workers overseas to keep its economy afloat made the LCP caregiver program “a perfect fit in the economic jargon of supply and demand.”

In a policy paper submitted to the Status of Women Canada this week, Ms. Connie Sorio of the Toronto-based Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ) wrote that the LCP has given enormous economic opportunities to businessmen and groups in the Philippines and Canada.

“Because of the increasing need for caregivers here in Canada, the establishment of training schools, recruitment/placement agencies, and immigration consultancy firms have mushroomed substantially in a relatively short period of time,” Sorio said.

However, due to these, illegal recruitment agencies and fraudulent immigration practices started to surface, she also said.

Illegal recruitment of caregivers has become widespread, Sorio said, that the LCP has become a front in trafficking women and girls. In some reported cases, girls’ ages were altered for them to qualify to work under the program.”

The Sorio report also exposes the role of the Philippine government and their Canadian counterparts in the growing global trafficking of women and children.

“This rampant and massive recruitment of caregivers by unscrupulous recruiters with complete disregard for their well-being, rights and welfare… has reached the point that it has become a syndicated trafficking of workers – 70 percent of women and girls - in complicity with government agencies in the Philippines and inefficient Canadian counterparts (HRDC, CIC, Canadian post overseas i.e. Canadian Embassy in the Philippines),” the report noted. Bulatlat

BACK TO TOP ■  PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION  ■   COMMENT

© 2004 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Publications

Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.