Migrant groups want Canadian Government to do more to protect rights of workers

A coalition of migrant worker groups in Canada is calling for pressure to be placed on the Canadian Government to do more to protect the rights of workers on the temporary foreign worker programme.

 

The call from Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in Ontario, Canada, follows a new report from the United Nations asserting that Canada's temporary foreign worker programme is a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.

 

Tomoya Obokata, United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery,  says workers are being exploited, enduring excessive working hours, less than minimum wage, and no access to health or social care as well as physical and sexual violence.

 

The Alliance's Executive Director, Syed Hussan, speaking Tuesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines, observed the UN report further highlights the plight of workers who are being exploited.

 

"Migrant farm workers from Jamaica as well as migrants and undocumented people and international students in Canada are being paid sub standard and inhumane wages, are facing wage-theft; they're living one on top of each other in boarding houses, sometimes not even with clean drinking water, facing human rights abuses, and all of this is a breeding ground for exploitation," he declared.