Women migrant workers’ acts of activism – quiet, consistent and rooted in hope
Throughout the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, I am reminded that the call to end violence in all its forms is at the heart of KAIROS’ work for justice, peace and right relationship. These 16 Days invite us to look closely at where violence hides, who carries its weight and how we are called to respond with courage, compassion and solidarity.
My reflection focuses on the people whose experiences are too often pushed to the margins: racialized, gender-diverse, climate-displaced and debt-burdened migrant workers whose labour sustains this country, yet whose rights remain insecure.
Their stories illuminate how gender-based violence extends beyond interpersonal harm and into the very systems designed to regulate migration.
Working alongside migrant communities, I have learned that violence is not always visible. It can be embedded in policies, in economic dependence, in precarious status and in the constant fear of losing one’s livelihood.
Structural violence looks like:
- Being tied to an employer who controls your housing and income
- Working long hours
- Handling hazardous materials with limited to no protection
- Fearing deportation if you report abuse
- Being separated indefinitely from your children and/or spouse
- Paying recruitment fees that place families in years of debt
- Being excluded from pathways to permanent residency
These realities reflect a system that prioritizes economic efficiency over human dignity. They disproportionately impact women, gender-diverse people and racialized migrant workers in communities already navigating layers of discrimination.
In the KAIROS community, we understand this as a justice issue, a human rights issue and a spiritual issue. Any system built on fear and disposability stands in opposition to right relations.
What stays with me most, though, is the strength and solidarity that migrants extend to one another. In conversation circles, community gatherings and shared living spaces, I witness mutual care. Women comforting one another after long shifts. Friends pooling resources so that someone can send money home. Workers supporting each other through isolation, sickness or sudden job loss.
These moments are acts of activism quiet, consistent and rooted in hope.
They remind me that the struggle for migrant justice is carried not only through advocacy and policy change but through everyday gestures of resistance and resilience. This aligns deeply with the spirit of our 16 Days reflections: transformation through collective action.
The 16 Days remind us that violence thrives in silence. And so, we break that silence by:
- Naming the harms within the Temporary Foreign Worker Program
- Advocating for permanent residency as the primary strategy for labour shortages
- Supporting regularization for undocumented people
- Calling for protections for climate-displaced communities
- Challenging the narrative that migrant workers are temporary and/or expendable
These commitments reflect KAIROS’ long-standing work for migrants, gender and climate justice.
Across our partner networks from frontline organizers to faith communities, we see courageous efforts to uplift migrant voices and ensure their rights are respected.
Partners like the Mary Ward Centre, and the Migrant Resource Centre embody the spirit of accompaniment by creating spaces for migrant women and communities to gather, share their stories, build support networks and access resources. Their work reinforces a truth we hold dearly at KAIROS: transformation begins in relationships. It starts when those most affected by injustice are centred and affirmed.
As we journey through these 16 Days, I carry a renewed commitment to the belief that migrant workers deserve safety, dignity and pathways to belong not because they “contribute,” but because they are human beings created in God’s image, worthy of flourishing.
Ending gender-based and structural violence requires us to:
- Challenge policies that exploit
- Amplify migrant-led leadership
- Advocate for systemic change grounded in human rights
- Build communities of solidarity where people are not treated as disposable
This work is slow and often difficult, but it is sacred.
The 16 Days invite us to imagine a world where no one is exploited because of their gender and for any other reason. A world where women no longer live in fear of gender-based violence in the workplace, where no one’s dignity depends on a work permit, where no one’s safety is conditional and where no one is forced to leave their home in the first place because survival depends on migration.
Until that world becomes reality, we continue to press for justice and be guided by courage and committed to the right relationships.
By Leah Shifferaw, Team Lead, Migrant Justice Program
