Hundreds of cases like Jasmine’s happen every year. For a fee, unscrupulous recruiters promise to ensure workers will have lucrative jobs that can support their families.
Those recruiters profit from workers’ economic hardships back home and collect thousands of dollars in ‘service fees’. Many workers take loans to cover those fees along with other travel expenses. These loans place workers in the precarious situation of relying on the work that often exploits them in order to repay their debts.
Their precariousness prevents them from acting on their rights once in Canada as they cannot jeopardize their employment. To make matters worse, in many cases the promised job offers either do not exist or employment conditions, including wages, are completely different than agreed.
Collaborative Network to End Exploitation (CNEE) calls on the Government of Ontario to stop unscrupulous recruiters by following the example of the governments of Manitoba and British Colombia and adopting comprehensive legislation to protect migrant workers from predatory recruiters and employers.