International Solidarity – Our Global Vision
MIGRANT WORKER FREEDOM NETWORK
In Canada, im·migrant household and farm workers were among the first to be subjected to employer-tied migration programs—which institutionalized unfree labour and produced devastating impacts on workers’ rights and working conditions. As measures binding im·migrant workers to employers-sponsors were applied to other occupations and sectors, the same harms followed.
Challenging these policies has always been central to RHFW’s work. While our current litigation activities and advocacy mostly focus on Canada, employer-tied migrant worker programs exist worldwide. And wherever they operate, they reproduce the same patterns of modern servitude, systemic rights violations, and high risks of debt bondage and human trafficking.
RHFW’s work is rooted in international solidarity with survivors and their allies around the world challenging in court immigration restrictions on workers’ fundamental rights and relentlessly pushing for explicit rights-based labour (im)migration policy alternatives.
Alongside our involvement in constitutional class actions and our mobilization for a new labour im·migration legislation model in Canada, we are committed to facilitating migrant worker freedom and empowering survivor-leaders and allies globally. Our long-term vision is global: transforming temporary labour migration systems everywhere so that im·migrant workers—regardless of occupation, origin, or destination—can move, work, and build their lives in dignity, with real rights and real choices.
We see the work we do in Canada as a standard-setting process to facilitate challenges of state restrictions on migrant workers’ fundamental rights globally. Building on our collective experiences, strengths, and partnerships, we support migrant worker freedom impact litigation and paradigm-shifting strategies in jurisdictions worldwide.
Here are examples of ways in which RHFW works towards the formalization of an efficient Migrant Worker Freedom Network:
Our organization is a member of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA), a global alliance led by migrants and bringing together more than 225 organizations across 33+ countries. In 2025, Gabriel Allahdua, former employer-tied migrant worker and RHFW’s Education and Mobilisation Officer, participated in the 6th Global Assembly of the IMA in Kathmandu. This involvement strengthens international solidarity and creates space to strategize, mobilize, and organize toward collective vision and action across regions.
RHFW delegates were also invited to present in Venice, Italy at the conference Food Production and Institutionalised Exploitation, participating in a panel on mobilization strategies, including strategic litigation, to collectively defend agricultural migrant workers’ rights. We shared key lessons learned and practical insights of our on-going constitutional class action.
In January 2025, our End Migrant Worker Unfreedom Project Director, Dr. Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier, sit on a panel for the webinar “Strategic litigation on behalf of migrant workers: To what extent and how can litigation help improve their working and living conditions?” organized by the European legal network DignityFIRM. The event brought together migrant worker rights experts from Europe, Canada, and Asia to discuss recent migrant worker strategic litigation cases and explore how legal strategies can lead to real improvements in the working and living conditions of migrant workers.
In response to the Government of Canada’s announcement in 2024 to extend sector-specific work permits to certain occupations in agriculture and seafood processing, RHFW co-organized a webinar with Amnesty international – Canada francophone. The event brought together international perspectives on restrictive work permit regimes, providing Canadian organizations with a deeper understanding of the potential implications of the proposed policy reform. The discussion shed light on the rights violations associated with sector-specific work permits and illustrated why they fail to create conditions that align with fundamental rights. Read the summary.
International Perspectives
RHFW also regularly contributes to the global dialogue through submissions to international bodies, in order both to highlight the systemic fundamental rights violations and risks of forced labour associated with employer-tied migration programs and to push for rights-based policy reform. Check out our submissions here.
DTMF | RHFW
Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers
info@dtmf-rhfw.org
514-379-1262