Workplace sexual violence against temporary foreign workers in P.E.I. underreported, advocates say
'Everyone in P.E.I. deserves to live safely and freely and in security,' says MLA
Better protections are needed for temporary foreign workers facing sexual violence in the workplace, advocates say.
Instances of sexual violence against workers often go unreported, said Sarah Dennis, program manager with the RISE Program, which provides free legal support for people who have experienced workplace sexual harassment.
"There are many barriers in place for temporary foreign workers to come forward to disclose sexual violence," Dennis said.
"There's language barriers, there is isolation when they're working in rural communities, so limited access to resources, and then also the fear of deportation and losing their status."
The issue was the topic of a panel discussion on systemic barriers faced by temporary foreign workers that was held at the Charlottetown Learning Library on Feb. 7.
An estimated 40 per cent of P.E.I.'s agricultural workforce is now made up temporary foreign workers. Adding in employees in seafood processing, the trucking industry and other jobs, the number of temporary foreign workers arriving on the Island every year grew from about 400 in 2015 to more than 1,600 in 2023.
Protective mechanisms for foreign workers that would make them less vulnerable to abuse need to be implemented by the federal and provincial governments, Dennis said.
'We're only hearing a fraction'
It's hard to know just how prevalent workplace sexual violence is among the temporary foreign workforce, said Joe Byrne, co-ordinator of the Migrant Worker Resource Centre at the Cooper Institute.
"We feel that we're only hearing a fraction of the actual abuses that are happening because of the fear of reporting," Byrne said.
"The question of status is often the essential one, so the fear of violence or coercion or exploitation is secondary to the fear of losing status."
Many foreign workers fear that reporting sexual violence or abuse on the part of their employer may cause their pathway to permanent residency to disappear, Byrne said.
"People arrive with the same hopes and dreams that many of us have," Byrne said. "Then they find when they get here, or even before they get here, that their status and their ability to live out those hopes and dreams rests on the willingness of their employer to keep them employed."
That's a result of the nature of the temporary foreign worker system itself, Byrne said.
"We should not be surprised that when we structure oppression into a system that the system becomes oppressive," he said.
"That is a natural consequence of poor policy making that puts workers in a vulnerable position with no pathway for dispute, or dispute resolution, without putting their status at risk."
Removing barriers
Although the Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act was passed in the P.E.I. Legislature in 2022, it has not yet been proclaimed into law.
That's because the province is working on the act's regulations, such as enforcement, said Karla Bernard, interim leader of P.E.I.'s Green Party.
After listening to the "powerful panel discussion," Bernard said she heard a clear message.
"There are people in our communities who are essentially invisible, and as a result are put in really vulnerable situations when it comes to being exploited," she said.
"We need to make foreign workers more visible. They need to have more connections in our community."
Although supports for temporary foreign workers exist, it can be challenging to access them, Bernard said.
"They're not connected, they don't have relationships built. There's language barriers, there's trust barriers, there's all sorts of barriers."
Providing information and resources to workers is something the government could take on, Bernard said.
She said she plans to bring the issue forward in the legislature and do more work on in her role as an MLA.
"Everyone in P.E.I. deserves to live safely and freely and in security," Bernard said.
"Knowing as Islanders that we've got people who aren't… should be a concern for everyone."
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With files from Connor Lamont