Human rights coalition Advocates Network is today (September 1) calling for Government officials to urgently investigate both working and living conditions of Jamaican migrant labourers on Canadian farms in the Niagara region. 

The group, in a statement this morning, said it is so far dissatisfied with the ‘dismissiveness’ of Labour Minister Karl Samuda despite repeated pleas for intervention and multiple news reports highlighting human rights abuses in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Programme (SAWP). 

“The Advocates Network is of the view that Labour Minister Karl Samuda’s response to a letter from Jamaican farm workers complaining about living conditions and human rights abuses on Canadian farms is unacceptable,” the coalition noted.

Outcry has only grown louder since the August 14 death of 57-year-old Jamaican farm worker Garvin Yapp, however, Samuda, in a Jamaica Gleaner article published last Friday, said his own experiences of farms after a recent visit to two select locations in Canada were “excellent”.

“I did not find anything that jumped out at me in terms of ill-treatment. Quite the contrary. I found that the relationship between almost 100 per cent of the farmers (the owners of the farm) and of the workers … was an excellent, strong, and pleasant relationship,” he told The Gleaner.

Several Jamaican farm workers spoke out against the conditions with which they are forced to live and work on Canadian farms in news reports by Television Jamaica programme All Angles and Al Jazeera internationally. 

Many being represented by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), a Canada-based lobby, have openly rejected what they consider the minister’s naïveté, slamming his ‘polished version’ as a slap in the face and not a true reflection of the realities being experienced.

Syed Hussan, executive director of MWAC, told CTV News that three migrant workers died in the week of August 24 and his organisation has evidence of “dozens more who have been abused, deported, fallen sick, or been injured”.

In siding with the aggrieved farm workers, Advocates Network argued that the Government has reneged on its duty to give its citizens the benefit of the doubt and defend their rights and interests. 

The coalition was adamant that “the depth of these allegations is too damning to go unchallenged” or be swept aside. 

“This is regrettable! Our citizens should have confidence in the Government’s protection and defense of their rights. The Advocates Network calls upon the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) to immediately reverse its position and launch swift and thorough investigations into these allegations, as well as other allegations of human rights abuses in the Farm Worker programme, including those aired on TVJ All Angles (8/31/22),” Advocates Network said.

“We expect the GOJ to take the necessary corrective actions recommended after the investigations and to fully comply with our obligations under international law,” the group’s statement continued.

During the All Angles programme, host Dionne Jackson-Miller informed the listening audience that a representative from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, who initially agreed to appear giving the Government’s perspective, later ‘declined altogether’ at the last minute, providing no explanation for what was behind the sudden withdrawal.

The Advocates Network also reminded the Andrew Holness administration that Jamaica signed and ratified the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families at the United Nations in 2008. 

The convention, which aims to eliminate the exploitation of workers in the migration process, explicitly protects migrant workers from “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

READ: PNP demands Samuda resign if labour minister fails to stand up for Jamaican farmworkers