🇨🇦 UN Envoy: Canada, Use of Migrant Workers Breeding Ground 'For Slavery' Locked In Debt Bondage
UN envoy calls Canada’s use of migrant workers ‘breeding ground for slavery.’ The Guardian, Aug. 13, 2024. - Tomoya Obokata’s report finds power imbalances and discriminatory practice exploits workers from global south
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Canada’s reliance on temporary foreign workers is “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery”, a UN special rapporteur has warned, amid growing calls to overhaul the controversial program. The damning report from the UN investigator Tomoya Obokata found that deep power imbalances and discriminatory practice in Canada cuts costs for companies but exploits against workers from the global south.
Obokata toured Ottawa, Moncton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to study the decades-long program, which relies heavily on workers from Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica. Throughout the country, he found workers were locked in debt bondage. Many had borrowed money to participate in the program and relied on their Canadian wages to repay accrued debts.
He also heard testimony of widespread emotional and physical abuse, wage theft, hazardous work conditions, long hours, sexual harassment and exploitation.
“The special rapporteur retains the view that the temporary foreign worker program serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights,” said the report. Under the current rules, Canada’s temporary foreign worker program allows companies to bring in foreign workers for sectors when an employer is not able to find local workers. In the past the agricultural sector has relied heavily on seasonal migrant workers.
Last year, employers were approved to hire 239,646 temporary foreign workers – more than double the 108,988 hired in 2018, according to Employment and Social Development Canada. Employers are increasingly using to fill positions in new sectors, including in fast food and construction. The number of people hired for low-wage jobs in the healthcare sector is up more than 15,000% since 2018. During the coronavirus pandemic, Canadians got a glimpse of the abuse and exploitation of rampant within a system long ignored by residents...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/canada-foreign-workers-un-report