Event Details

Montreal, September 11, 2014 --- Mr. François Crépeau, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights for Migrants, will be speaking at a panel discussion being held on September 24, at 6:30 pm, at Concordia University’s Sir George Williams’ downtown Hall Building, 1455 DeMaisonneuve West, Room 1220 (12th floor).
Co-sponsored by CRARR, the Institute for Research and Education on Race Relations and PINAY, a local Filipinas’ rights organization, the panel discussion will be held under the theme, “Systemic Discrimination Towards Migrant Workers in Quebec: Where Are We in 2014?”

Mr. Crépeau, also a Full Professor who holds the Hans and Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, at the Faculty of Law of McGill University, will speak on his mandate as Special Rapporteur and issues such as the particular precariousness of the work conditions of migrant domestic workers, including the importance of the 2011 Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers. Mr. Crépeau was appointed to his Special Rapporteur position by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 for a six-year mandate.

A panel discussion will follow, beginning with a presentation of the main findings of the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission report published in December 2011, entitled “Systemic Discrimination Towards Migrant Workers.” Commission lawyer and author of the report, Marie Carpentier, will discuss the report and its recommendations.

Her presentation will be followed by two panellists with first hand experience with migrant workers’ civil rights advocacy: Mr. Enrique Llanez, anthropologist by training who came to Canada as a temporary foreign worker and who was exploited by the Quebec subsidized video game industry, and now a worker at the Immigrant Workers’ Center; and Ms. Delia De Veyra, who came to Canada as a live-in caregiver and who is now an active volunteer with PINAY. Both will speak from personal experiences on issues still facing migrant workers in Quebec in 2014.

There is no registration fee. Due to limited seating, please register in advance by email: crarr@primus.ca