Media Release
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada

Filipino community in Vancouver heightens its Struggle against the anti-woman and racist Live-in Caregiver Program

3 March 2005

Over 80 members of the Filipino community and their supporters reaffirmed their commitment to continue their grassroots struggle against Canada immigration's Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) in a community forum held on February 27, 2005.

The National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) took the initiative to organize the forum to bring back to the community its dialogue with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) in its policy review of the program. The community forum brought together a broad spectrum of the community drawing a majority of its participants from the growing number of Filipino women working as domestic workers under the LCP. One-third of the Filipino community, which is now the fourth largest immigrant group in Canada, is made up of women under the LCP. This is not surprising considering 93 percent of those entering Canada under this program come from the Philippines.

Cecilia Diocson, Chairperson of the NAPWC, presented the three policy areas that CIC has recently decided to focus its attention on: working conditions, eligibility and permanent residency related to the LCP. While CIC's attention on the LCP remains narrowly focused on these three areas, Diocson stressed that the community's 20 years of history and hardship with the LCP exposes the wide-range of policy areas and impacts that the LCP encompasses.

She presented a comprehensive review of the LCP based on a paper prepared by the NAPWC: "Filipino Women in the Live-in Caregiver Program: Equality and Human Rights Issues." The presentation highlighted some of the LCP's new features which includes the requirement that the women coming to Canada under the LCP must hold with them an employer-specific work permit which harkens back to the dark days of slavery when masters held deeds over their slaves.

The presentation underscored the hardships that the LCP brings on the thousands of Filipino women now doing domestic work in Canada. Diocson specifically criticized the live-in requirement, temporary immigration status, and the LCP's strict condition that the women must live and work in their employers' home for a minimum of two years within a three-year period before they can apply for permanent residency.

Diocson said the lure of permanent residency is the carrot on the stick for most women. But she likened the abuse and exploitation most women face during their two years under the LCP to, "passing through purgatory before going to heaven." "But even once the women receive their landed status they find themselves far from heaven," said Diocson. She said many women experience difficulties in family reunification and are trapped in low-wage, service sector work even after out of the LCP.

The NAPWC also shared with the community their efforts in lobbying the Canadian government to change and even scrap the program for the genuine development and equality of Filipinos in Canada.

Getting behind this effort to bring about positive change, the forum participants began the open discussion period with outpourings of suggestions for further community action.

Also moved to echo NAPWC's presentation with their concrete experiences were two Filipino women currently working under the LCP. From the audience, they shared their desperation as they experience lack of privacy, humiliation, low wages and constant unpaid overtime work living and working in their employers' home.

The NAPWC looks forward to building upon the unity achieved at the forum. As the first-ever national Filipino women's organization in Canada, the NAPWC recognizes that there is much more work to be done in understanding the comprehensive issues of Filipino women, the LCP, and other pressing issues. It promises to forge on in its struggle to help realize the Filipino community in Canada's legitimate aspirations for genuine equality, human rights, social justice and development.