Statement
Philippine Women Centre of BC

We remember and take action against violence against women! 

December 6, 2008

 
As progressive and militant women in Canada, the Philippine Women Centre of BC (PWC-BC), remembers the 14 women killed in the December 6th massacre in Montreal in 1989 and pays our respects to their family and friends.  We also take this opportunity to celebrate the victories and struggles of the women’s movement around the world on this National Day of Action and Remembrance on Violence Against Women so that these women and other victims of violence will never be forgotten. 

As Filipino women in Canada, we suffer socio-economic violence perpetrated by the Canadian state.  Today Filipino women experience systemic and personal violence from the state, their employers, partners, spouses and others.   

The Filipino community in Canada is predominantly female as our migrant labour is feminized.  Since the early 1980’s Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and its predecessor the Foreign Domestic Movement have systemically deskilled nearly 100,000 Filipino women by using them for cheap labour. Under the LCP Filipino women face all forms of abuse and are sentenced to a lifetime of deskilling and economic marginalization. We also see the expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker’s Program (TFWP) further violating the rights of migrant workers, leaving them more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. This is all done under the guise of economic development and progress, but unfortunately leaving workers as collateral damage.   

Through PWC-BC’s community-based research, we have documented and studied the long-term negative effects of the LCP on our community within Canada and will continue to call for this exploitative program to be scrapped.  From this and current work, we also anticipate the violence experienced by working class women in Canada to intensify, especially with the current global financial crisis and with moves towards the legalization of prostitution.  Sadly, we anticipate more trafficking of Filipino women and children for sex work and cheap labour around the globe.   

In Canada women under the Harper government are clearly not a priority. Their recent attacks to pay equity and the continuing lack of universal childcare program are only some of the examples of the dwindling social supports women in Canada face. 

In spite of all these challenges, PWC-BC, its sister organizations across the country continue our grassroots educating, organizing and mobilizing.  Through cultural work such as our recent political fashion show, Scrap, and with other ongoing Violence Against Women (VAW) projects, we constantly work to bring light to the concrete conditions of our community and other working class women.  By sharing their stories of struggle, women who have participated in our studies and other work with the PWC-BC have shown their empowerment and resistance. 

We will continue to draw inspiration from their struggle and in the memories of all women victims of violence, vow to work in solidarity with others towards the elimination of all forms of violence against women and towards our genuine development, equality and human rights in Canada.  

Statement issued: December 6, 2008

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