Local advocacy groups condemn deportation of a Filipino live-in caregiver and baby; blame unfair and unjust government policies
by
Grassroots Women
VANCOUVER, B.C. - Local advocacy groups are condemning the deportation of a Filipino live-in caregiver and her one-year old Canadian-born baby, saying they are victims of unfair and unjust government policies.
Lilibeth Agoncillo, a 34 year-old single mother from Mindoro province in the Philippines, worked for almost two years in Hong Kong as a domestic worker to help support her daughter. She came to Canada in April, 2005 under Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). Despite living and working in Vancouver for over three years she has been ordered to leave Canada immediately for not meeting the 24 months of live-in work within three years requirement.
“Like many other live-in caregivers, Agoncillo changed employers several times and because of many bureaucratic hurdles, delays in processing her work permit and a lack of information, she fell through the cracks of the unfair and often confusing immigration system,†says Glecy Duran, chairperson of SIKLAB-B.C., an organization of overseas Filipino workers.
Duran says that Agoncillo’s situation is not unique. “Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program [LCP] is a trap for many women workers," says Duran. "The exploitative and restrictive policies of the program mean that many workers end up without status in Canada and are ordered deported. To add salt to the wound, we are also not readily assisted by the local Philippine consulate to return home,†she says.
The Philippine government is responsible under Philippine law for the repatriation of Overseas Filipino Workers in emergency situations such as deportation. All overseas Filipino workers must also pay before leaving the Philippines into a fund managed by the OWWA (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration) dedicated to providing services for the estimated eight million Overseas Filipino Workers around the world. However, Agoncillo has been facing bureaucratic hurdles in accessing assistance to pay for her airline ticket to return to the Philippines by dealing with the local Philippine consulate and the Philippine Labor Attache offices.
“It’s very stressful, waiting like this,†she says. With no money to pay for her flight back to the Philippines, Agoncillo lives in fear and tension, fearing Canadian immigration officials may come knocking at her door.
"Overseas Filipino Workers are propping up the ailing Philippine economy with the $12.3 billion US sent home so far this year alone, yet in times of distress local Philippine government officials only give us a lot of bureaucratic excuses," says Duran.
Agoncillo has been participating in a research project on the impacts of deportation, conducted by Grassroots Women, a local women’s organization. “We have met other women like Lilibeth who are facing deportation despite having Canadian-born children,†says Merryn Edwards, of Grassroots Women. “These kinds of situations will only increase as the Canadian government continues to rely on this exploitative program instead of providing equitable solutions to Canada’s child-care crisis. The government talks about ‘modernizing’ Canada’s immigration system, but what they really means is expanding the use of temporary foreign worker programs as a cheap way of filling labour needs with no regard for the rights of workers. â€
In the meantime, she says she supports the campaigns of SIKLAB and Grassroots Women calling to scrap the Live-In Caregiver Program and for universal childcare.
“If I had known the reality of this racist and anti-woman policy [the LCP], I never would have come here,†says Agoncillo. “I want other Filipinos and Canadians to know the reality of the situation here,†she says. “The Philippine government calls us [migrant workers] ‘Modern-Day Heroes’ but we are more like modern-day slaves.â€
Since the early 1980’s nearly 100,000 Filipino women have entered Canada as live-in caregivers, performing childcare, elderly care and other domestic duties in the homes of middle and upper-class Canadians. The groups call the LCP is the government’s “de-facto childcare program†and a part of the increasing privatization of healthcare.
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