Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance – Ontario
March 11, 2009
Press Release

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO TURNS TO UNJUST SOLUTION TO SATISFY CHILD-CARE DEMANDS

Filipino student group appalled by the hypocrisy of Uof T’s Family Care Office in endorsing modern-day slavery

Toronto, ON – The Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance – Ontario (FCYA-ON), a registered student organization at the University of Toronto, is outraged at the Family Care Office for holding a workshop on finding a caregiver under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), a federal program that promotes the human trafficking of Filipino women. The workshop is provided by a group that says that it promotes “family diversity,” but yet it blindly ignores the exploitative nature of the LCP.

The Family Care Office held an information session on February 18, 2009 to provide a venue for a placement agency and current employers of Filipina caregivers to help students, staff and faculty find the caregiver who is “the right fit for their family.” Although members of the University should have an opportunity to make informed decisions about their family’s caregiving needs, by presenting the program as the cheapest, most pragmatic and just solution to fulfill Canadians’ childcare needs without realizing its oppressive quality, the University of Toronto’s action is an assault to all Filipino women and youth struggling for equality, particularly those who toil under the LCP.

“I am ashamed to be attending an institution that promotes the exploitation of women,” states Kim Abis, a member of the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance who attended the said workshop. “Not only did they impart wrong and illegal information about the LCP that puts our women in greater peril, but there is also a complete disregard for the long-term impacts of the program that the Filipino community continually suffers from.”

The Live-in Caregiver Program is a part of the federal Temporary Foreign Workers Program that recruits highly-educated and highly-skilled women from the global south to work in Canada as domestic workers and as caregivers for children, elders and people with disabilities. It is the government’s de facto substitute to a sorely needed national daycare program that would meet the needs of all women and families in Canada. And not only does the LCP exploit migrant women, but it also prevents working-class families from accessing reliable childcare and healthcare services. Hence, it is no surprise that the LCP is also the University’s response to the poor childcare service that it provides for the members of the school community.

As part of the Family Care Office’s mandate to “support students, staff, faculty and their families with any family care issue by providing information, guidance, referrals and advocacy,” they offer assistance to anybody interested in sponsoring a domestic worker from abroad or in hiring one locally. The workshop marketed the LCP as “dependable and affordable homecare” that assures you of “motivated
and dedicated workers” because they face the pressure of “completing the 24 months of paid employment within 36 months of entry into Canada” to be eligible for permanent residency. “Sharing nannies” was even suggested during the workshop, an act strictly not allowed under the program. The agency also mentioned more illegal ways to “go around” the program, all of which can be grounds for the deportation of the caregiver.
As Filipino women now compromise 97% of migrants working under the LCP, the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) and its member organizations, including the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance, have been conducting community-based research on the effects of the LCP on the community for the past two decades. Years of documenting these women’s experiences expose the “the great disparity between the policies and the current reality domestic workers struggle with,” states Kelly Botengan, the spokesperson of SIKLAB-Ontario, a progressive migrant workers organization. She describes the precarious conditions live-in caregivers face – women who are often poorly compensated, work longer hours and do more work than what is formally agreed upon. “The live-in  requirement places women in a vulnerable situation, making them susceptible to all forms of abuse,” says Botengan. “This requirement, along with other restrictive mechanisms imposed by the LCP, is a denigration of the dignity and freedom of these women, violating their most basic human rights,” she added.

The Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance-Ontario condemns the University of Toronto and the Family Care Office for endorsing a program for modern-day slavery. “The Family Care Office must be held accountable for organizing a workshop that perpetuates the context for the exploitation and oppression of domestic workers,” states Abis. “It felt like they were auctioning Filipinas off. It was patronizing and, ultimately, insulting.” The student group points out that the mere fact that “they imparted wrong information and gave illegal advice is appalling enough.” They also expressed this as an affront to the
years’ work of organizing FCYA has done with Filipino youth, who now experience one of the highest school drop-out rates in Canada.

Along with the Philippine Women Centre and SIKLAB, the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance identifies the LCP as a detriment to the genuine development and full participation of the Filipino community in the broader Canadian society. The three organizations stand firm on their position to scrap the racist and anti-woman Live-in Caregiver Program. And as advocates of a universal childcare program that would benefit all Canadians, including working-class families, FCYA calls the Family Care Office to promote and actively work towards a more just solution to meet the genuine childcare needs of entire UofT community. They also challenge the Family Care Office to realize its complicity in reproducing the very same injustices that destroy thousands of immigrant families dispersed all over the world. If the Family Care Office vows to “raise awareness of family care issues and of quality of life issues,” then why does it seem as if they have forgotten about the quality of life that migrant and working-class families dream and strive for?

For more information, please contact:

Magkaisa Centre
1093 Davenport Rd,
Toronto, ON
Website: www.magkaisacentre.org
E-mail: ukpc-on@magkaisacentre.org

Phone: Kim Abis, Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance-Ontario at 416-519-2553