Ethiopian domestic worker - prisoner-like conditions

Human trafficking criminal charges are being pressed against a couple living in Laval, Quebec for the exploitation of a domestic worker and withholding her personal documents.

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the domestic worker of Ethiopian descent was hired in Lebanon through an agency and brought to Canada by her employers. Neighbours found it suspicious that she was never permitted to leave home and believed that she lived in prisoner-like conditions. Concerned about her well-being, they contacted the RCMP to investigate.

PWCQ, along with their sister organizations under the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC), have been calling for the scrapping of the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) for decades. The LCP is a federal program that recruits women from the third world to work under a temporary visa as domestic workers for 24 months within a 3 year time period before approval of permanent residency in Canada.

LINK: Philipine Women Centre of BC

LINK: File photo credit from OCAP