Nanny Abuse

Once the review of the program is completed, the findings will be forwarded to Immigration Minister Judy Sgro. Sgro has been heavily criticized by opposition politicians who claim she fast-tracked the approval for a Romanian stripper working on her re-election campaign, allowing her to stay in Canada under another dubious immigration policy that encourages women in desperate economic situations to come to Canada to work in strip clubs. According to documents obtained under the Access to Information Act by a Vancouver lawyer, Human Resources Development Canada was told that many of the dancers, brought in to fill labour shortages, would be forced into prostitution at clubs controlled by criminal gangs. And at one point in 1998, Immigration Canada officials warned Human Resources in a memo that they were “extremely hesitant to send women into this profession.” Even so, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, who was then human resources minister, approved the program.

Finally, after days of heated exchanges in the House of Commons late last year, the government announced that the women would no longer be imported as dancers. The same kind of pressure is now mounting on the Live-in Caregiver Program. “There have been similar problems with both the live-in program and the exotic-dancer program,” says Bill Siksay, ndp Citizenship and Immigration critic. “The live-in program has been an important aspect of child care in Canada for many years, but it has also been a source of exploitation of foreign women. The live-in component has been especially problematic and I would urge the government to review this requirement.”

It would be months before Kristina finally escaped her abusive Vancouver employer. With the help of a kindly lawyer she managed to get the $3,000 in back pay owed to her, and was finally able to apply for landed immigrant status and find her own place to live. She now rents a two-bedroom, subsidized apartment in downtown Vancouver, furnished with a couch, end tables, computer, TV, and nativity figures.

Kristina also gave birth to a baby daughter, who coos happily in a playpen in the corner. The baby’s father is the son of a domestic worker who came to Canada after being left behind in the Philippines for fifteen years while his mother worked in Canada. He has trouble holding down a job and has a gambling problem. As a result, she has decided to raise her daughter on her own—a move that has been criticized by some of her Roman Catholic friends. She blames the father’s money and job problems on the fact that he was apart from his mother for so many years. “I can really see the impact the separation had on him,” says Kristina. “He’s lost and I don’t want my daughter to grow up with that kind of uncertainty.”

When she arrived in Canada, she was not aware that she was part of the exodus of women from poor nations. But Kristina now plans to tell her daughter about everything she has been through. “People in the Philippines are in denial,” she says. “It’s like the money Filipinas earn in the West washes away the sacrifices and misery. I want my sister Jan and daughter to be aware of the struggles of the Filipina women in Canada and in the Philippines.” If any good can come out of her experience, she hopes it is that her sister and daughter can avoid the ordeal she has been through.

It will help if Ottawa finally reforms its Live-in Program, and allows impoverished women from around the world to enter Canada through the front door.