The Denied: Barriers Migrant Women Face to Accessing Abortion Health Care

10/08/20 • 42 min

Meet Frédérique Chabot, the Director of Health Promotion and Interim Executive Director of Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights, an organization that promotes health, wellbeing and rights related to sexuality and reproduction. We talk about the barriers the COVID-19 pandemic has erected in accessing abortion health care and how these barriers are more severe for migrant women given that access is reliant on the immigration status one has. As you listen to this episode, consider how there is a need to consider access to health care with a gendered and racialized lens and how pandemic responses so far have ignored migrant women.

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Skyler's Hearing

Meet Skyler, a former refugee claimant who made a claim for protection in Canada because she feared for her life as a lesbian in the United States Army. In this conversation, we talk about what it feels like to go through the refugee determination system at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and the Federal Court of Canada. For more information about her case, you can read Smith v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2009 FC 1194.

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#StatusForAll: Migrants Organizing for Permanent Residence Status for All

Meet Karen Cocq, Projects & Campaign Coordinator for Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Canada’s largest coalition of self-organized groups of migrant workers. In this episode we talk about the #StatusForAll campaign and the call for material changes in the immigration system to confer permanent status upon arrival so that all persons can access health care, labour rights, and to enable the elimination of exploitative, abusive and punitive working conditions that persist due to the temporary and precarious status of migrants. Check out migrantrights.ca for more on the anti-racist call for change, the #StatusForAll campaign and for information on how to support it.