J4MW: 'Debt bondage' grows in Windsor area

http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Debt+bondage+grows/3174090/story.html

LEAMINGTON, Ont. -- Her first duty when she stepped off the plane at Toronto's Pearson International Airport: slip her Canadian contact some money wrapped in a newspaper.

Her next duty: start paying back the $5,000-plus -- a huge sum for her back home -- that she paid to work in Canada.

She remained hopeful, but when "Angela" arrived in Leamington from her home country in southern Asia, she soon started realizing farm work in Canada wasn't as advertised.

She said she lives in an overcrowded apartment, her wages are below what she signed on for and she experiences a general lack of freedom, including with whom she associates.

"I'm still paying after almost two years," said Angela, who supports two children back home on $400 a month and lives in an apartment here with eight people.

"We don't have a problem with the work, it is only with the agent we work with." "He tries to control our home, our work renewal permits, even our laundry," Angela said.

"We do not have freedom at all." Human-rights advocates are focusing more and more on the growing issue of "debt bondage" and human trafficking in Windsor and across the country, helping educate foreign workers about their rights in Canada.

Angela is among the thousands of temporary foreign workers who cut fish, pack cucumbers and pick tomatoes in Essex County.

Most work at legitimate operations and happily return year after year. Some, however, pay excessive fees to agencies promising benefits that never materialize.

A work renewal permit costs $150. But third-party agents sometimes charge $2,000 or more to fill out the paperwork. If workers attempt to complete the requirements themselves, an unscrupulous agent might threaten to have a worker fired -- which would instantly render the foreign national "illegal" in Canada.

Such workers then feel defenceless.

"I came to work in Canada to get money for my family in Thailand," said Sumalee, 31, who has been in Canada for four years and who sometimes makes as little as $50 a day doing piece-meal work in a fish-packing plant. "I feel disappointed because we didn't get what we expected.

"It's kind of frustrating. But I keep smiling. I still have hope." The United Nations defines human trafficking as "the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them." The UN notes that every country in the world experiences the phenomenon to some degree and estimated in 2008 that some 2.5 million people fell victim to human trafficking worldwide.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "After drug dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and is the fastest growing." Yet it's hard to see.

"Human trafficking is a very difficult problem to wrap your head around statistically, because it's a very hidden crime," said Marty Van Doren, the RCMP's London-based human trafficking awareness co-ordinator. "Most human trafficking victims never come to the attention of law enforcement or other organizations. They don't come forward because they can be very scared of the human traffickers who are taking advantage of them, scared to testify, scared of authorities. Quite often they're ashamed to come forward, and if they're illegal in this country, they have a big bull's-eye on them because there's always a chance of being deported." Van Doren said while coercing women into the sex trade is the most common form of human trafficking, exploited labourers -- especially in southern Ontario -- are the next most common group.

Canada has obtained five convictions of human trafficking under the Canadian Criminal Code, and some 30 others are before the courts. One human trafficking charge was laid in the Windsor area under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. A Windsor man allegedly kept two American men against their will, collecting their pension cheques.

Yet human trafficking convictions prove difficult, Van Doren said, since the cases often come down to one person's word against another's.

Shelley Gilbert, co-ordinator of social-work services at Legal Assistance of Windsor, provided a presentation on the complexities of human trafficking Friday at the Canadian Social Forum, at All Saints Church.

She notes that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. have specific legislation governing third-party job recruiters.

She wants to see tougher federal legislation, which includes the stipulation that employers, not workers, pay recruiter fees.

Some workers, she said, pay more than $10,000 to third-party agents, and then come here to find more and more fees added, and less and less ability to break the cycle. They can't go home because they still owe money, and they face restrictions if they stay.

"There are thousands of temporary foreign workers in Windsor and Essex County," Gilbert said. "Are all of them victims of human trafficking? Absolutely not.

"But the more we work with that population, the more we see evidence and people coming to us over the last year. I liken the issue to domestic violence 25 years ago, when domestic violence was very secretive." Gilbert believes that while most people don't know the term "human trafficking," the tide has begun to turn, and that temporary foreign workers are starting to recognize that they can stand up.

A group of Thai workers recently approached MP Dave Van Kesteren's Chatham-Kent-Essex constituency office, for instance, to discuss the phenomenon.

"We want to investigate this," Van Kesteren said Friday, noting that abuses are rare but that they generally arise from third-party recruiters. "We don't want abuses. It's heart-rending to hear these people's stories." Van Kesteren said he has spoken to the government about human trafficking, and that he wants to explore legislation that would place more controls on third-party job recruiters. But he doesn't want to dismantle the current system.

"This is a very important process that we have here," he said. "It's very important to our farmers, to the greenhouse growers, to the economy, and it's also important to the migrant workers who have good, legitimate arrangements." Van Kesteren plans to host a round-table on the issue with community stakeholders later this summer. © Copyright (c) The Windsor Star



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