Migrant worker rights and labour trafficking in rural

settings

Human Trafficking for Forced Labour Forum: April 23rd, 2013Alfredo Barahona, Migrant and Indigenous Rights Program

CoordinatorKAIROS

Overview

• Working and Living Conditions of TFWs in Canada

• Definition of Human Trafficking

• Elements of Human Trafficking in the TFWP

• Labour and Human Rights Instruments

• Recommendations

Many migrant workers pay between $10,000.00 -

$15,000.00 (CAD) to Recruiters

Huge debts to pay

Some workers don’t have contracts

Some can’t read their contracts

Unexpected expenses in Canada (income tax, transportation, housing, food)

Working 12 hours a day, 6-7 day per week

Working and Living Conditions of TFWs in Canada

Unsafe and unhealthy living conditions

Not taken to the “place of employment” listed on the

contract

Work permit tied to specific employer

Out of work when farms do not have sufficient work

Some have worked for $7.50/hr because agents took

$1.50/hr from their pay

Others have worked, at times, for as little as $7 - $10/day Sue Wilson, CSJ, Office for Systemic Justice Canadian Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph. Migrant Workers in Canada: Working in Situations with Significant

Elements of Human Trafficking

“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment,

transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of

persons by means of the threat or use of force or

other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception,

the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or

giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve

the consent of a person having control over another

person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Trafficking in persons

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the

exploitation of the prostitution of others or other

forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services,

slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the

removal of organs;Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children Supplementing The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime

Elements of human trafficking in the TFWP

Fraud and Misrepresentation

Control and Coercion

Exploitation

Labour and Human Rights Instruments

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• International Conventions on the protection on the

rights of migrant workers and members of their

families

• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

• Canadian Labour Law

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 23

1.Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

2.Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families

Article 11

1. No migrant worker or member of his or her family shall be held in slavery or servitude

2. No migrant worker or member of his or her family shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

12. Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment

15.(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

15 (2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Labour law and migrant workers in Canada

Canadian laws protect every worker in Canada. This

includes temporary foreign workers like you.

Your employer:

must pay you for your work

must make sure that your workplace is safe

cannot take your passport or work permit away from

you

A person at your local employment or labour standards office can talk to you about fair pay, hours of work, rest periods, working conditions and provide other services.

You do not need your employer’s permission to call this office or visit its website. An employer cannot punish you or have you deported for contacting an employment standards office.

Most of the time, you have the right to refuse to work if you believe that the work you are doing or have been told to do is dangerous.

You must be paid until the danger is removedyou feel the problem no longer exists ora government official tells you that it is safe to do the work.

Your employer cannot punish you for refusing dangerous work.

Refusing Dangerous Work

Employers must provide TFW with the same wages and benefits as those provided to their Canadian citizen and permanent resident employees working in the same occupation.

In addition, TFWs working in a unionized environment must be paid the wage rate as established under the collective bargaining agreement.

Wages, Working Conditions and Occupations

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/tfw-rights.asp

Recommendations

Work together with people from different sectors in society but in particular with people who have been trafficked to:

Help implement public education to raise awareness on issues of and the intersections between human trafficking , forced labour and migrant workers

Support and participate in civil society advocacy campaigns to protect the human rights of migrant workers

Take actions to hold elected officials and bureaucrats accountable in their responsibility to monitor and enforce the human rights of migrant workers

Thanks!