Migrant women workers face ‘illogical’ hurdles

She came to Canada in 1995 under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) of the federal government. But just two months after she came to Canada, Melca Salvador, a native of Philippines, was thrown out of her job after her employers came to know that she was pregnant.

Five years after she initially came to Canada, she was ordered by the Canadian government to leave the country in 2000, with the claim that she failed to fulfill the LCP requirements i.e. minimum of two years of domestic work within three years after coming to Canada. Salvador asked in her feature documentary, Standing Ground, that what’s wrong with her longing of a legal status and opportunity to raise her Canadian son in Canada.

Spokesperson of the Immigrant Workers’ Centre in Montreal, Tess Tessalona, said that this story is not unique and is only one among many that highlights the injustices done towards women in Canada, especially in case of migrant women.

Tessalona said at a discussion about imperialism, exploitation, war and suppression that the exploitation and opposition of the working class has been on a global level and said that no one should be illegal. Tessalona, who herself came to Canada in 1988 as a migrant worker, said that migrant workers have very less right or no rights at all. She said that most of these migrant workers have to do “3D” jobs which others do not like doing as such jobs are dangerous, difficult and very dirty.