Our Mission

The Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers (RHFW-DTMF) is a non-profit community organization incorporated in 1977. Through research, education, advocacy and legal action, DTMF-RHFW aims to promote and defend the fundamental rights of household and farm workers in Quebec and Canada, particularly those employed under precarious immigration legal status – rights set out in the Canadian constitution, the provincial human rights legislations and the human rights conventions ratified by Canada including the Convention on the abolition of the practices similar to slavery.

Our History

The religious community of the Institute of Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Conseil was one of the first groups in Quebec to offer support to workers employed in private residences. They helped build shelters for young women travelling to Montreal and looking for employment as domestic workers. In 1947, with the help of a woman named Marie Gérin-Lajoie, one of these shelters became the Social Assistance Center for Immigrants. In the late 1970s, the Association pour la défense des droits du personnel domestique de Montréal / Montréal Association for the Rights of Household Workers of Montreal was incorporated to collectively challenge the normality of abusive working conditions.

In 1998, the organization started to focus its work on the individualized support of live-in caregivers employed in Quebec under foreign worker legal status, and officially adopted as its name the Association des Aides Familiales du Québec / Quebec Caregiver Association (AAFQ).

Until the revocation in 2014 of its public funding and access to contacts for welcoming and supporting (im)migrant caregivers, the AAFQ actively brought together (im)migrants household workers united by a shared desire to fight social isolation and improve their employment conditions.

Insufficient funds and no access to caregivers’ contact info forced in 2015 the discontinuation of individualized support services for workers.

In the meantime, the systemic rights violations require activities aiming to improve the exercice of rights for all individuals affected.

The association thus start in 2016 to focused on its projects for collective defence of rights. It started again in 2016 under the name Association pour la Défense des Droits du Personnel Domestique / Association for the Rights of Household Workers (ADDPD-ARHW). Its members subsequently clarified that the mission also covers the rights of individuals working at the place of residence of their employer in rural areas, on farms. Accordingly, in 2022, the organisation’s name was updated to the current one, Association pour les Droits des Travailleuses.rs de Maison et de Ferme / Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers (DTMF/RHFW).

Systemic improvements to which the association contributed over the years:

• Increased awareness amongst policymakers and the public of the value of the work done in places of employer residence
• Inclusion of domestic workers in Québec’s Loi sur les normes du travail
• Adoption of International Convention C189 – Convention concerning decent work for domestic workers by the International Labour Organisation
• Softening of the federal immigration restrictions on access to permanent status for live-in caregivers employed under employer-tied foreign worker legal status
• Increased awareness amongst policymakers and the public of the systemic trafficking of employer-tied foreign domestic workers facilitated in Quebec by unscrupulous employers, recruiters, placement agents and immigration consultants
• Increased awareness amongst policymakers and the public of the restriction on the capacity to resign and exercise rights created by employer-tying measures applied to household and farm workers under foreign worker legal status
• Softening of the federal immigration restrictions on access to open work permits for employer-tied foreign workers exceptionally supported to be able to wait and convince a federal agent of abusive employment conditions
• Inclusion of some domestic workers in Québec’s Loi sur les accidents du travail et les maladies professionnelles
• Increased awareness by policymakers and the public of the necessity for fundamental rights of issuing open work permits for all household and farm workers in Canada under foreign worker legal status
• Increased awareness by policymakers and the public of the necessity for the rights to psychological integrity and access to justice of issuing open work/study permits to spouses and children of household and farm workers in Canada under foreign worker legal status
• Increased awareness amongst policymakers and the public of the necessity of on-arrival access to permanent legal status to allow a logistical capacity to access to justice
• Increased awareness amongst policymakers and the public of the necessity of offering states-run recruitment and placement services for all household and farm workers in Canada under foreign worker legal status, to prevent debt bondage and allow the exercise of fundamental rights and access to decent work conditions,
• Softening of the federal immigration restrictions on access to public funding for community organisations facilitating integration and supporting individuals under foreign worker legal status
• Increased awareness amongst policymakers and the public of the necessity, for fundamental rights and decent working conditions, to maintain accessible at all time legal status regularization procedure allowing access to permanent residency for individuals admitted under foreign worker status who faced an obstacle and lost accessibility to general legal status renewal or permanent status procedures