Advocating for Migrant Workers at the SEA Summit for the Human Trafficking Awareness Day
FCJ Refugee Centre had a relevant presence in the Support, Empower, Access (SEA) Summit for the National Human Trafficking Awareness Day (February 22nd), hosted by the Association for New Canadians (ANC) in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Jovana Blagovcanin, FCJ Refugee Centre’s Anti-Human Trafficking Manager, together with Varka Kalaydzhieva, Program Director at Collaborative Network to End Exploitation, presented on exploitation of migrant workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). They opened and closed their presentation with two poems from migrant worker and advocate Gabriel Allahdua.
Jovana and Varka facilitated the Migrant Worker Exercise with participants across different sectors, including law enforcement, service providers and mental health professionals, to provide an overview of a migrant worker’s experience in Canada through a role-playing activity.
Participants played the roles of migrant workers, where they were given identifications and short biographies of workers, and went through the process of recruitment, border crossing, and working and living on a farm while highlighting the systemic issues that workers face including abuse, exploitation and limited resources for support.
Participants heard first hand testimonies from migrant workers about the various abuses they faced in the TFWP. Then, Jovana and Varka led a discussion about the options each participant/worker had after experiencing abuse and exploitation, the benefits and shortcomings of each of these options, and the possible final outcomes to highlight how these options are often dead ends.
It was a successful event that allowed FCJ and the Collaborative Network to End Exploitation to highlight that Canada has systems in place that facilitate exploitation but are not widely considered human trafficking. We were able to advocate for the end to closed work permits and Status for All, while considering how we can collaborate to work within a Do No Harm principle and anti-oppressive approach.
