March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racism
SIKLAB-B.C. (Advance the Rights & Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers and their Families) Announcement

Rally and March to Scrap the Racist and Anti-Woman Live-in Caregiver Program!

 
Rally and March
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson and Hornby)
12 noon

Since the early 1980's nearly 100,000 Filipino women have come to Canada through Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and its predecessor the Foreign Domestic Movement. The women are a source of cheap labour, performing childcare, elderly care care for those with disabilities and other domestic duties for middle and upper-class families. The LCP is the de facto national childcare program and exists because the privatization of the health care system.

For nearly two decades, Filipino women and the progressive Filipino community have been calling for the scrapping of the LCP because of the documented abuse and human rights violations of the women and their families. For two decades, the LCP has relegated the Filipino community to the margins of Canadian society--continually trapped in low-income jobs and vulnerable to abuse and exploitation--one generation after another.

The community has called on the government to allow Filipino women to come to Canada as permanent residents with their families and the right to choose their employment. However, the government has not taken genuine action to end this exploitative program.

With the current global economic crisis, the Canadian government is making changes to the LCP and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program without transparency. But the tinkering to these programs and moves for "community consultations" will not address the fundamental flaws of these programs. Canada is beginning to close its doors to foreign workers.

We expect the current crisis will lead to a rise in racism, trafficking and the number of undocumented workers who face unjust deportation. While Canada brings these disposable workers here for cheap labour when it needs them and deports them when they do not, governments have yet to address the exploitation these workers face within Canada and the role globalization plays in the global migration of workers.

Please join us in a rally to support the struggle of Filipino live-in caregivers for genuine development, equality and human rights!!

Please contact SIKLAB for more information at ph: 604-215-1103 or
e-mail: siklab@kalayaancentre.net

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