The Migrant Mothers Project is a collaborative research project led by Rupaleem Bhuyan at the University of Toronto in partnership with a network of service providers, legal advocates, community health workers, and grassroots women.
MMP uses participatory research methods to examine how immigration policies contribute to different forms of gender-based violence. We also explore how immigrants and service providers advocate for immigrants’ rights to access social, legal, and health services.
Caregiver Program Set to Close in 2019
On February 2nd, IRCC announced their plans to terminate the current Caregiver Program in November 2019. This announcement has generated a lot of concern for people working in the program, especially for those who will not have enough time to complete the 24-month work requirement. With several community partners, the Migrant Mothers Project took part in a consultation meeting with IRCC on March 16th to share our concerns. We then submitted recommendations on behalf of our Research Advisory Committee and community partners to IRCC on April 6, 2018. We are currently awaiting a response from IRCC.
SPONSORED SPOUSES' JOURNEYS
The Migrant Mothers Project in finalizing our analysis of the study, “There to Here: Sponsored Spouses’ Journeys” which seeks to better understand the impact of conditional permanent residence and immigration enforcement on South Asian immigrants who recently moved to Canada as a sponsored spouse. We are currently analyzing interviews with key stakeholders who work with sponsored spouses and interviews with sponsored spouses. Despite the repeal of Conditional Permanent Resident Status (which required spouses to cohabit with their partner for two years), our research suggests Canada’s continued surveillance and scrutiny of sponsored spouses through their multiple border strategy. See website, for our forthcoming publication in the Law & Policy Journal.
See the new publication here.
CAREGIVERS' JOURNEYS
From 2015 to 2018, the Caregivers’ Journeys study looked at how Canada’s temporary foreign worker program exacerbates and normalizes the risk for abuse, exploitation and the loss of immigration status for live-in-caregivers. The findings have now been published in the Journal of Family Violence, highlighting the current challenges facing migrant caregivers in Canada and how caregivers respond to workplace abuse and exploitation as they seek to fulfill their long-term goal of becoming permanent residents and reunifying with their families in Canada. We also translated the information into an infographic to be used to raise awareness and to encourage conversations within the caregiver community, service providers and the broader public; while also supporting on-going migrant workers campaigns.
See the new infographic here.