SIKLAB-Canada (Advance the Rights & Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers and their Families)
Statement

March 21, 2009: International Day for the Elimination of Racism
SCRAP THE RACIST AND ANTI-WOMAN LIVE-IN CAREGIVER PRO

March 21 , 2009

 
Since the early 1980’s nearly 100,000 Filipino women have come to Canada through Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and its predecessor the Foreign Domestic Movement. The women are a source of cheap labour, performing childcare, elderly care, care for those with disabilities and other domestic duties for middle and upper-class families. The LCP is the de facto national childcare program and promotes the increase of the privatization of the health care system.

For nearly two decades, Filipino women and the progressive Filipino community have been calling for the scrapping of the LCP because of the documented abuse and human rights violations of the women and their families. Many women receive low wages, work long hours without overtime pay and face all forms of abuse including rape. They are sentenced to a lifetime of de-skilling, many unable to upgrade or have their education and professional training accredited in Canada.

The LCP has relegated the Filipino community to the margins of Canadian society — continually trapped in low-income jobs and vulnerable to abuse and exploitation — one generation after another.

The LCP liberates one class of women from domestic work on the backs of Third World women. It also violates the human rights of the women and their families by restricting the women from bringing their families to Canada until they have completed the required 24 months of live-in work within three years.

Because of an increase in enforcement and investigation of women under the LCP, an increasing number of women are being unjustly deported “airport to airport” upon arrival in Canada. Without ever leaving the airport, Canada Border Service Agency officers are investigating the validity of the women’s employers and some women are being immediately deported back to their country of origin or to the Philippines. The LCP has become a conduit for human trafficking as women are paying thousands of dollars to agencies only to find that they are being released by their employers upon arrival or that their employers are fake and non-existent.

More and more women are unable to meet the LCP’s strict requirements and face unjust deportation. For those who are able to bring their families, the long years of family separation lead to breakdown in relationships and strained reunification. Not surprisingly, the children of live-in caregivers also face barriers to their successful settlement and integration in Canada. Filipino high-school youth in Vancouver and Montreal have high drop out rates and are also more vulnerable to anti-social activity and violence.

With the current global economic crisis, the Canadian government is making changes to the LCP and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program without transparency. Like previous changes to the program before, no community consultations were done beforehand and no thought was given to the eventual effect of these changes on the lives of the workers themselves.

The community has called on the government to listen to the voices of the Filipino live-in caregivers, however government after government has not taken genuine action to end this exploitative program.

Human Resources and Social Development Canada has called for a national “consultation” on changes to the processing of work permits for live-in caregivers. The “consultation” is being done over the phone with non-profit organizations. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is in Vancouver today to hold a roundtable on the LCP and meet withvarious immigrant communities. Despite our log-standing community-based work with Filipino live-in caregivers, he has made no effort to dialogue with the progressive Filipino community. Similar roundtable discussions in the past led to nowhere.

But the tinkering to these programs and moves for “community consultations” will not make any significant impact on the lives of women without addressing the fundamental flaws of the LCP. We believe that you cannot reform what is basically a program that is racist, anti-woman, and anti-worker; a program that is meant to serve the interests of the few at the expense and exploitation of the many.
Because of the economic crisis Canada is beginning to close its doors to foreign workers. This is not a solution to the crisis and does not recognize the contribution that undocumented, migrant and immigrant workers make to the Canadian economy. We expect the current crisis will lead to a rise in racism, trafficking and the number of undocumented workers who face unjust deportation. While Canada brings these disposable workers here for cheap labour when it needs them and deports them when they do not, governments have yet to address the exploitation these workers face within Canada and the role globalization plays in the global migration of workers.

Therefore, we demand that the Canadian government “Scrap the LCP”! We call on the government to allow Filipino women to come to Canada as permanent residents with their families and the right to choose their employment. We demand that the Canadian government respect the full scope of the human rights of these women and their families and support the long-term settlement and integration of the Filipino community in Canada. We urge the Canadian government to implement a national universal childcare program that is accessible to every family in Canada and to end the privatization of healthcare.

Support the struggle of Filipino live-in caregivers for genuine development, equality and human rights!
Scrap the racist and anti-woman Live-in Caregiver Program!
Universal childcare and healthcare for all!

--

--