Confessions from a nanny: white babies, brown women

MONTREAL (CUP) -- You see them in the park pushing strollers - brown women with white babies. Commonly known as "nannies," these women work in Canada to support their families back home, as part of the Live-in Caregiver Program. The following testimonies from three Filipino women reveal the program is not all it claims to be.The Live-in Caregiver Program is an anachronism - a throwback to the time of indentured servants. In a different era, people sold their labour in exchange for basic essentials and passage to a new country. While most Western countries now have more equitable labour systems, vestiges of these older worlds remain.

The Live-in Caregiver Program, an adaptation of the 1981 Foreign Domestic Movement program, was introduced in 1992 to attract immigrants to Canada to work as live-in domestic help. People who enter through the Program are overwhelmingly women of colour from impoverished countries, which rely on foreign remittances to stimulate their economies. According to research from Filipino groups, over the past 25 years more than 5,000 women have come to Canada every year. Today, Filipino women account for over 80 per cent of all domestic workers in Canada.

Under the Program, live-in caregivers can apply for a Canadian permanent resident visa - but only after two years of caregiver employment, which must be completed within three years of their arrival in Canada. If they fail to fulfill this requirement, they can be deported.

Live-in caregivers must possess the equivalent of a Canadian Grade 12 education supplemented with domestic training, and reside in their employers' houses.

Critics argue that this situation leaves domestic workers vulnerable to abuse - fearful of losing their job and not completing the two years, they usually remain silent rather than complain. Additionally, with no method of monitoring how many hours caregivers work, they often perform undocumented overtime and earn less than minimum wage.

Filipino groups in Canada have criticized the program for deskilling and exploiting women. Some groups like the Philippine Women's Centre of Quebec consider the program too problematic to reform, and have called for its abolishment.

I was in the Philippines when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo increased repression of progressive political groups in February 2006. Students were having protests around the country and my school was in the thick of things. I remember facing policeman, with long guns, who were part of special S.W.A.T teams.

It was at this time that my visa for Canada arrived. Personally, I didn't want to come to this country, but I had to shoulder financial responsibilities. My mother is a farmer, but my father does not have a permanent job. Being the eldest of nine children, I was able to go to university with the help of my aunt, who is also a live-in caregiver. But if I had stayed in the Philippines and found a job, it wouldn't have been enough to cover living expenses.

In March 2006, I arrived in Canada thinking I was in the land of the gods. It was the complete opposite of the reality I was living back in the Philippines. I harboured the hope that I was on the first step to financial success, because I wanted to alleviate my family's economic circumstances.

When I went for my interview at the Canadian Embassy, and they gave me a document about the Live-In Caregiver program. Based on my experience and those of countless other women in the program, I now know that the harsh reality of program is so unlike its description.

Though the contract specifically states we should be working only eight hours a day, we start working the minute the children of our clients are up in the morning until they go to bed at night. That roughly translates to twelve hours per day, sometimes more. Should the kids or the clients need help at night, we are obliged to get up and do so. Most of the time, it's unpaid overtime work. And when you're inside the house you can't do anything on your own without asking for somebody else's permission.

To be frank, nannies actually fill the role of a mother and wife - the only thing we do not do is sleep with the husband. "Live-in caregiver" is a misnomer for housekeeper, nanny, cook, and tutor rolled into one, kind of like an all-purpose cleaner. We're lucky if somebody thanks us or recognizes us for our role. The nighttime is the hardest part; that's when we have the time to think about our families and what we are doing to survive.

The program doesn't really offer us much protection. The policy states that we should be paid the minimum wage in the province that we are in, but the reality is that a lot of girls are receiving wages below the minimum, and I am one of them. What we make is barely enough for basic needs, because we also have to support our extended families in the Philippines.

Being tied up with one employer, our ability to improve our economic situation is limited. A lot of us actually work seven days a week just to keep afloat financially, putting ourselves in danger of abuse by taking "under-the-table" jobs. And once an accident or any form of harassment occurs, you have a choice between keeping quiet to keep your work permit, or complaining, which might mean deportation.

There was one time when I would work for a cleaning agency, after taking the children to school and finishing all the household chores. I was working with another Filipina who was in the same situation as me, if not worse. Can you imagine cleaning a four-bedroom house, top floor to basement, in two hours, for $10 an hour? The chemicals would give me headaches and nosebleeds. I quit the job but they still owe me money.

Since I came to Canada, I always ask the question: I'm working harder than I ever did in my life, but how come I don't experience the supposed economic reward? It hit me hard that I wasn't able to adjust to life in Canada. I always thought I was a strong and confident woman. When you look around, the material comforts that you see only serve as an affront - these people have so much, and yet the majority of the people in the world have nothing at all. While I was going through with this, I tried to forget having been an activist in the Philippines so that I could adapt to life in Canada. It came to a point where I said, "I know about these exploitative situations, I've learned all about it in educational discussions back home. Why is it that, now that I'm in this situation, I feel so useless that I can't do anything?"