This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 8, April 3-9, 2005
MIGRANT WATCH
Caregiver Recruitment: A
Front for Women Trafficking?
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
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 © 2004 Bulatlat
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Congress
to probe into Canada’s caregiver program
Bulatlat