Nanny Abuse

Many couples employing the nannies believe they are doing them a favour. One month’s salary, after all, is more than most would earn in a year in their impoverished home countries. And then there is landed-immigrant status, something they would likely never achieve under standard immigration rules. But critics charge that employers and the government are perpetuating a myth by claiming that women from the developing world do well by coming to Canada. “I am not surprised that most Canadians don’t get what is going on here,” says Zahra Dhanani, an immigration and human-rights lawyer and former board member for Intercede, a Toronto-based advocacy group for the rights of domestic workers. “The men and women who fought to liberate women over the last century fought to liberate white women. The women’s movement was not thinking of women of colour. They don’t want to jeopardize the rights they have attained by standing up for groups that are still oppressed. It’s easier to live in denial than identify with other peoples’ struggles.”

In fact, a study in 2000 conducted by Intercede concluded from nearly 100 interviews with women working under the Live-in Caregiver Program, that nearly all had suffered some form of abuse, including rape, sexual harassment, and threats of deportation. “Because these women were not born here, it somehow legitimates a different kind of treatment being applied to them,” says Macklin. “Neither the government or individual employers feel accountable for that. Canadians feel in some way that they are not responsible for elevating these women to some position of equality.”

Not recognizing the exploitation that impoverished women face in the West has resulted in the nannies becoming commodities that employers, employment agencies and governments are cashing in on. “There is so much money being made off the backs of foreign women,” says Cecilia Diocson, founder and former chair of the Philippine Women’s Centre of BC, a Vancouver-based organization. “Employers save money by not having to pay child-care fees or having one spouse leave the workforce, employment agencies make domestic workers pay astronomical amounts to pursue their dreams of better lives in the West, and governments like the Philippines deal with the poor and unemployed by sending them abroad.”

When Michael and Rachael had twins at thirty-seven they needed help immediately. A neighbour in their wealthy suburb north of Toronto, recommended the couple hire a nanny through the Live-in Caregiver Program. Within six months of applying, Caroline, a native of Cusco, Peru, knocked at their door. Caroline had lost her job, and with her family facing eviction from their apartment, decided to leave her six-year-old son behind with her husband and come to Canada. The new employers soon experienced the troubled world of the foreign domestic worker when Caroline introduced Rachael to other nannies in a nearby park who told her stories of maltreatment and abuse. “At first I didn’t believe what I was hearing because I just couldn’t imagine employers dehumanizing the women looking after their children,” says Rachael. “But then I saw the behaviour for myself when some of the employers at the park ordered their nannies around like servants.”

They also became embroiled in Caroline’s legal problems. Since completing the mandatory two years of employment under the program, Caroline waited over a year for her immigration papers to be processed. At one point, Michael, a lawyer, tried to expedite Caroline’s application but to no avail. As a result, she ended up being apart from her son for more than three years. “The entire experience with Caroline has really opened my eyes to the injustice that goes on in the playgrounds of our communities,” says Rachael. “It is so disheartening to watch Caroline care for my kids when I think that in Peru there is a child with no mother. The Live-in Program takes advantage of the desperation of people like Caroline.”

“Stupid! You are stupid!” the seven-year-old boy screamed at Maria, his nanny. Maria shook her head in response. “Please don’t say such things,” she admonished, in her thick Mexican accent. “It’s wrong to call people stupid.” Just as she said this, she looked over at the doorway where Jake’s mother was watching the altercation unfold in the kitchen. “I don’t want you telling Jake what he can and can’t do,” she yelled.

Maria, twenty-eight, had been a live-in caregiver for less than two months at their home in Burlington, just west of Toronto, where she cared for Jake and his two older siblings. It wasn’t just the kids who were abusive. Jake’s mother was hostile toward her almost from the outset. She even accused Maria of lying about being able to drive a car and forced her into the driver’s seat of the family’s new sedan and ordered her out onto a busy highway. “I thought I was going to kill us all, including the kids in the back seat,” says Maria. “It was night, and I was petrified.”

Maria started work at sun-up and often didn’t finish until the kids were bathed and asleep. When she did have time for herself, there was no place for her to escape. She wasn’t allowed to watch TV or soak in the bath after a long day. She contacted the Toronto-based employment agency that had arranged the job but received little sympathy. “The agency told me I should work every Friday night for free,” says Maria. “Everything I said, the agency took my employer’s side. I decided right then to find a new employer and a new agency.” Furious when Maria gave notice, her family held back $600 of her salary and began taping her phone calls, including one she made seeking legal advice. They also threatened to write a letter to immigration officials saying that Maria would not be a suitable Canadian citizen.

Now, after years of complaints, politicians may finally be getting ready to help the nannies. Groups supporting the women want changes in two critical areas. Cecilia Diocson recently told the Citizenship and Immigration Canada task force that is investigating the program that, in addition to abolishing the live-in requirement, she wants nannies’ salaries raised so that the women can support themselves. Diocson argued that the requirement forcing foreign domestic employees to work for two years before they can apply for permanent residency is grossly unfair. Like others addressing the committee, Diocson maintains that since there is a scarcity of Canadians willing to do this kind of work, nannies should be accepted as skilled labourers. “These women,” says Diocson, “should receive permanent residency upon landing in Canada like any other class of immigrants whose work is seen as necessary to the economy.”

Under the current immigration system, foreigners are assessed and awarded points for educational achievement, work experience, and employment potential. The more points an individual has, the greater likelihood they will be accepted under the skilled-labourer class. Women in the Live-in Caregiver Program, however, can rarely acquire enough points to be considered under these rules. “Domestic workers aren’t seen as worthy of coming into the country like everyone else, so they must use the Live-in Caregiver Program instead,” says Louise Langevin, a law professor at Quebec’s Université Laval and co-author of Trafficking in Women in Canada. “The program amounts to back-door immigration.”