Migrants Rights Network
“Migrant Workers are Canada’s modern-day slaves” said Toronto journalist, Zach Ruiter (2017).The climate crisis, fueled by capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism, is making many parts of the world inhospitable.Since 1970, a period of restructuring in the capitalist world, Canada has increased the number of temporary migrant farm workers and this increase as a result multiple oppressions against them (Valiani, 2014, p.1). The Migrant Rights Network is a Cross-Canada alliance to combat racism and fight for migrant justice. Migrants, regardless of their legal or employment status, possess inherent human dignity that should be respected and basic human needs that must be met. The Migrants Rights Network is an alliance of self-organized groups of refugees, migrants and allies (Migrant Rights Network, 2019). The Migrant Rights Network uses social media, such as Facebook and Twitter to organize racialized, working class migrants, refugees and displaced people. They also demand permanent resident status for all migrants and refugees who are already here as well as landed status on arrival for those who will arrive in the future (Migrant Rights Network, 2019). TheMigrant Rights Network takes an effective reformative approach to social change and people’s opinion, which is evident in their use of digital technology, like social media, in order to achieve social justice and resist oppression and marginalization.
Firstly, the Migrant Rights Network’s reformative approach uses digital technology, such as social media, in order to enable effective migrant resistance and social justice. Using social media, the Network provides the migrant workers with examples of situations where their labor rights are protected, and makes the issues that these migrants face visible. For instance, tens of thousands of migrant farm workers from the Caribbean, Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines and Thailand toil in fields across Canada, suffer labor exploitation, and lack access to health care. In Ontario, for example, there is no minimum wage for farm workers(Ruiter, 2017, p.1). Many of these workers are tied into contracts with single employers and can be sent home without cause. Therefore, the Migrant Rights Network uses their web site platform to demand labor mobility. They want decent work and fair wages and state that anything other than equality for the migrant workers is outrageous (Migrant Rights Network, 2019). In addition, the Migrant Rights Network has demanded an end to the discrimination and criminalization of migrants, refugees, and racialized people.As mentioned, because farm workers are one of the most vulnerable groups of immigrants, they have no status and Canadian immigration policy places them in a very precarious position. The Migrant Right Network uses social media to call and demand for effective social justice for immigrants, and their website is a way to give migrants a voice and visibility, also they have 4788 Facebook followers, and their videos had reproduced thousand’s times. For instance, they organized rally “United Against Racism” with hundreds of assistants, on that really they had farm worker’s speakers and they spoke about racism and labour exploitation they are living every day. Some news paper like Global News, talk about it and got visibility for this problem.
Additionally, the Migrant Rights Network’s reformative approach uses Facebook as a tool to create a more effective migrant resistance and end oppression and migrant marginalization. They use Facebook as a platform to encourage holding internal meetings of their members to discuss what a joint people’s platform for racial and migrant justice would look like. Migrant Rights Network make workshop with different topics against racism and they organize some rally. For example, Rally in Grange Park was historic first Ontario’s migrant farm workers separated from their children. Workers will be taking to the streets in Toronto on Sunday June16th, 2019 as part of actions in nearly dozen cities. This is effective and useful because they educate the people about what is racism and how immigrants confront racism every day and help them to make visible this problem for Canadians to press government to make changes in the immigration law. Furthermore, the Migrant Rights Network encourage joint meetings of different organizations in communities across the country with organizations that lobby for forms of anti-racist and migrant justice to discuss a unifying platform and support the united against racism campaign. For example, the Workers Action Centre are fighting together to unionized migrant workers. They organized racialized people to make some strategies to fight against labor exploitation and this is important because the migrant workers are united to ask for their basics labor rights and improve their work conditions. Moreover, the Network has posted videos to create awareness about migrant workers and encourage empathy for them. For example, the short film call “United Against Racism” is a tool to help communities educate themselves about immigration, racism, and the importance of uniting to fight the rise of the right (Migrant Rights Network, 2019). They use Facebook to promote their events in solidarity with these workers. Finally, the Migrant Rights Network uses social media as a toolto enable people to actively discuss issues of racism and immigration. For example, their creation of hashtags, such as #unitedagainstracism, has allowed activist individuals to participate in their own unique way regarding many social issues that have the potential to lead to the downfall of society (Chaner, 2018, p.1). Social media is a tool for the creation of social justice. Migrants workers should use social media as a platform to voice their concerns on social issues, especially if they believe they’re not being heard.
Social media is an important tool for people of color and other oppressed groups to be heard because racism doesn’t give these groups the safe space to talk. Social media can also be used to spread the word about some claims (Devora, 2017, p.1). For example, the “Migrant Dreams” documentary. This documentary shows the real situation de migrant farm workers live in Canada and is shared through Facebook and Twitter. Social media can be used as a powerful tool to create networks, organize people, and educate like how Facebook is a space where people can debate about migration issues. However, social media is a privilege, and people who don’t have access to technology may not be able to participate in the same way. For instance, farm workers sometimes don’t have access to the internet on farms. For the people who do have the privilege of access to digital technology can use these tools to support marginalized folks, for example, Fight for $15 and Justice Campaign. On the other hand, social media can be used to spread negative views, such as white supremacy, and more people are using digital technology to spread hate speech. This is why it is important that anti-racism organizations and social justice networks have access to and use digital technology to give support to marginalized people such as migrants in Canada (Sara, 2017, p.1). These people can then share their work and resist against oppressive systems.
In conclusion, the Migrant Rights Network uses digital technology as a tool. For instance, they use Facebook and their website to wage an effective fight against oppression, labor exploitation, and marginalization. They use social media to create and build a strong anti-oppressive platform and build opportunities for advancing activism. The Migrants Rights Network has proven how social media can provide opportunities to create advocacy groups for migrants and help to strengthen outreach efforts, and find and increase the numbers of volunteers and allies for migrant workers. Additionally, social media increases the speed of communication and information which can benefit such marginalized groups as migrant workers and other oppressed people of color. Finally, the Migrant Rights Network’s reformative approach uses digital technology to organize and establish actions across the country to build a people’s movement to make a change for equality for migrants. The world must be #UnitedAgainstRacism because it needs #MigrantJusticeNow.
