Migrant workers in Canada have been exposed to \u201cshocking abuse and discrimination\u201d while working under the country\u2019s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), according to a new report by Amnesty International. <\/p>\n
In the report published Thursday, Amnesty criticized the structure of Canada\u2019s TFWP, which allows employers to hire migrant workers for primarily low-paid jobs across sectors including agriculture, food processing, construction, and hospitality. <\/p>\n
The human rights organization said laborers were vulnerable to abuse through \u201charmful provisions\u201d in the program, including closed work permits that tie workers to a single employer who controls both their migration status and labor conditions. <\/p>\n
Amnesty interviewed 44 migrant workers from 14 countries for the report, predominantly from what it termed the Global South, with most workers reporting unpaid wages and excessive hours. Some workers told Amnesty their contracts stipulated zero rest days. <\/p>\n
Many workers said they suffered discrimination at work, including being tasked with the hardest physical jobs. Some workers said they suffered severe injuries or developed medical conditions due to unsafe working conditions. <\/p>\n
One woman from Cameroon, B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte, told Amnesty she had suffered racist psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of her employer while working on a two-year closed work permit on a farm. <\/p>\n
After leaving the farm in July 2018, her employer canceled her work permit, leaving B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte with an irregular migration status. \u201cI did not expect to be a slave here,\u201d she told Amnesty. <\/p>\n
Another worker told Amnesty he faced \u201csevere forms of control\u201d by his employer. <\/p>\n
Miguel, a Guatemalan migrant worker with a two-year visa under the TFWP, told Amnesty he was threatened and surveilled. He said his boss confiscated his passport and placed cameras in the container where he lived and the garage where he worked. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe abuse experienced by migrant workers in Canada is deeply troubling, especially for a country that claims to be a leader when it comes to protecting human rights,\u201d Erika Guevara-Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns at Amnesty International, said. <\/p>\n
Amnesty also said many workers reported living in inadequate housing conditions, with a few saying they did not have drinking water in their accommodation. <\/p>\n
An official at Amnesty International Canada, Ketty Nivyabandi, called on Canada\u2019s leaders to implement reforms to \u201cbring the program in line with Canada\u2019s human rights obligations \u2013 and, ultimately, to respect the rights of workers.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Migrant workers in Canada have been exposed to \u201cshocking abuse and discrimination\u201d while working under the country\u2019s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), according to a new report by Amnesty International. In the report published Thursday, Amnesty criticized the structure of Canada\u2019s TFWP, which allows employers to hire migrant workers for primarily low-paid jobs across sectors <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}