Jenna Hennebry

Bienvenidos a Canadá? Globalization and the Migration Industry Surrounding Temporary Agricultural Migration in Canada

“Migrant workers” have become an important resource in the global economy, and not solely for employers and governments. Multilateral agreements, trade liberalization, and advancements in communication and transportation have enabled flows of the world’s poor into international labour migration systems, often mediated by a migration industry that profits from providing services to employers and migrants. Based on ethnographic case studies in Mexico, participant observation in Ontario, and interviews with migrant workers and their families, farmers, government representatives and other intermediaries, this paper examines the extent to which a migration industry has formed around the Mexican-Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.

Temporary migration, chronic effects: the health of international migrant workers in Canada

See related practice article by Pysklywec and colleagues on page [1039][1] and at [www.cmaj.ca/cgi/doi/10.1503/cmaj.091404][2]. In 2008, Canada admitted 192 519 international migrant workers on temporary work permits — a historical high.[1][3] This number reflects a trend in labour migration:

Falling through the cracks? Migrant workers and the Global Social Protection Floor

Growing numbers of migrant workers worldwide face human rights violations, exploitation and mistreatment, and lack broader social protections granted to permanent residents in countries where they work. Protecting migrant labour was an objective at the founding of the International Labour Organization (ILO), documented within the Declaration of Philadelphia in 1944. Yet, more than 60 years on, despite numerous United Nations (UN) conventions, declarations and frameworks aimed at protecting their rights, migrant workers remain marginalized. In the context of globalizing labour markets and economic crises, migrant workers are a particularly vulnerable group. This article will discuss the extent to which the Global Social Protection Floor Initiative (SPF) has addressed this group, and will assess how well existing international, bilateral and national frameworks for social protection extend to migrant workers.

From “Khadema” to “Zemegria”: Morocco as a “Migration Hub” for the EU

The converging processes of globalization, political and economic integration in the region (in the form of the EU specifically) and growing securitization in the region have created significant change in Moroccan migration over recent decades. First, with the growth in export processing and growing numbers of free trade agreements reaching new heights over the last decade, the considerable expansion of export processing (predominantly for EU markets) in the Northern regions of Morocco (most notably the port city of Tangier) has drawn internal migrants from Morocco and beyond, seeking employment in one of the many under-regulated textile, electronics, and automotive factories. Second, in recent years Morocco has become an important gateway to Europe (primarily through Southern European member states). While Moroccan emigration is not itself a new phenomenon – for example, Morocco has had longstanding bilateral migration agreements with many European states, including Spain, France, and Italy – Morocco’s contemporary migration management terrain has changed considerably. Third, as the country has responded to growing immigration (as both a destination and a transit country), there has been mounting pressures from the EU to control their borders in the face of growing emigration from Africa. The result of these processes has been the emergence of a multi-tiered and messy migration management system made up of national, bilateral, regional, and international policies, conventions and agreements involving administration by numerous government departments and agencies, as well as numerous intrastate and non-state governing bodies and actors. Caught somewhere in the middle – are the migrants, whose rights (both as migrants and as workers) are neglected. Ironically, this myriad of migration and security policies, and the expansion of export processing in Morocco, were in part intended to reduce migration through increased employment opportunities, stay-at-home development, and tightened borders. Yet, this messy migration management system, coupled the global export processing zone with under-protected workers, poor wages and job security, and escalating securitization, has actually served to create the conditions that encourage migration (particularly irregular migration), rather than curb it.

Moving to Stay or Staying to Move? Borderlanders & Internal Migrants Negotiating Work and Mobility in Export Processing Areas of Tijuana and Tangier-Tetouan

This chapter investigates the link between the transnational production of goods and migration in the context of export industries in border regions. Recognizing that labor migration in these areas represents a complex interaction between local and global labor markets, commodity chains, as well as internal and international migration networks, this chapter examines the motivations for migrating, options, obstacles and opportunities as experienced by workers in Border Export Industries (BEIs) in two case studies: Tijuana (Mexico) and Tangier-Tetouan (Morocco). Providing a comparison of these two cases, the chapter provides a conceptualization of the phenomenon of migration to and from export-processing areas in border regions based on the concept of migration hub. Further, this chapter outlines a rough typology of migration/migrants from such migration hubs.

Working Conditions in Border Export Industries and Migration

This chapter assesses working conditions in Tijuana and Tangier-Tetouan border export industries, comparing wages, freedom of association, forced labor, harmful child labor, job safety, and discrimination. The evaluation is carried out across four levels of analysis: supra-national regulations (International Labor Organization), national policies, local arrangements, and what was reported by employees. Managers’ mistreatment of Tijuana workers increased during the crisis from 2000 to 2009 and is especially prevalent in Korean factories. We conclude that working conditions are worse in Morocco because there is a constant surplus of labor, making the informal negotiation for improvement which occurs in Tijuana during boom times impossible. Export industries in these border locations have historically drawn migrants from the interior who can over time escape very bad working conditions by emigrating.

The global compact for migration: From gender-rhetoric to gender-responsive?

Despite growing feminization of migration, gendered migration pathways and labor markets,1 and disproportionately deleterious outcomes for women and girls in migration (such as heightened risks of exploitation, gender-based violence, risks to sexual and reproductive health, etc.), migration governance has thus far tended to be ‘gender-blind’ – ignoring the gendered realities and risks for women migrants and leaving the gender inequality inherent to this regime unaddressed. The New York Declaration (NYD) held much promise for enhancing much-needed gender-responsiveness in migration governance in the context of growing feminization of migration.2 Indeed, civil society and women migrants’ organizations considered the incorporation of gender-responsive language and commitments in the 2016 NYD an important step forward. In particular, Section II, No. 22 specifically refers to adopting a gender-responsive approach in the formulation of the global compacts, and No. 31 clearly articulates the commitment to

Making vulnerability visible: medical repatriation and Canada's migrant agricultural workers

The long-standing Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) has drawn considerably less public criticism than other streams of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) that have captured media attention in recent years, despite mounting evidence against its deeply flawed structures that render

The New Realities of European Migration Management, What Does It Mean for Insiders and Outsiders?

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars around an important question: how has migration changed in Europe as the European Union (EU) has enlarged, and what are the consequences for countries (and for migrants themselves) that are cast inside and outside of the redrawn jurisdictional and territorial borders of the EU? By addressing this question the book contributes to three current debates with respect to EU migration management: (1) that recent developments in EU migration management represent a profound spatial and organizational reconfiguration of the regional governance of migration, (2) evidence of a trend towards the externalization or subcontracting of migration control and, (3) how the implications of Europe’s changing immigration policy are increasingly felt across the European neighborhood and beyond. Based on new empirical research, the authors in this collection explore these three processes and their consequences for both member and non-member EU states, for migrants themselves, and for migration systems in the region.