. Workers typically live on their employer’s property and lack the privacy to discreetly seek care. Many live in remote, rural areas where abortion access is already sparse and transportation is hard to come by. And they face the added challenge of being unable to receive health care in their first language.
While many migrant workers can access public health care, not all of them can, said Lindsay Larios, assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, who studies precarious migration and reproductive justice. When it comes to abortion, there is a lot of stigma around migrant workers having intimate or sexual relationships, said Larios.
Despite the fact that the abortion pill, mifepristone, became available in Canada at the beginning of 2017, this has not necessarily translated into better access to abortion for migrant workers, said Larios and Lam. Given the few protections migrant workers have around their health, and how little it can take to deport them for an illness, disability or other scenario that makes them less valuable in the eyes of the employer, “it’s just not the solution that you would think at first glance, if you’re not in caught in this very impossible situation,” said Datta-Ray.
Govt iallows businesses to use migrant workers to undercut Canadian wages. They need to end this exploitative program. Folks coming here to work cheap suppresses wages, and sending money back home rather than spending it in the local economy, does not benefit Camada. Enough.