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Recipient: Janet McLaughlin
Hometown: Waterloo, Ontario
University: University of Toronto
Award: IDRC Doctoral Research Awards
PhD thesis topic: Trouble in Our Fields: Health and Human Rights among Mexican and Caribbean Migrant Farm Workers in Canada.
Research Locations: Canada, Jamaica, Mexico

In rural Ontario, migrant agricultural workers typically get dropped off in town on Friday nights to shop. The weekly ritual gave Janet McLaughlin an entry point into the Jamaican and Mexican migrant communities she wanted to study.

“I would literally hang out at the grocery store and start talking with the workers,” she says. “It didn’t take long to formulate my initial hypothesis — that they didn’t have enough support and information.”

McLaughlin was already acquainted with Jamaican culture. Her mother was born and raised in Jamaica, and the family often returned to visit relatives in Kingston.

Her family trips, along with a high school exchange to Mexico, sparked an interest in global issues. In 1999, while pursuing an undergraduate degree in international development at the University of Guelph, she got involved in volunteer work relating to HIV/AIDS, world hunger, and violence against women.

Graduate work at the University of Sussex brought her back to Jamaica for research into women’s rights. Returning to Canada for doctoral work in anthropology, she bridged her interest in Latin America, the Caribbean, and human rights by focusing on the well-being of participants in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. IDRC supported her work at the University of Toronto through a Doctoral Research Award.

Lack of access to health care

From those initial contacts at grocery stores in places like Simcoe and Niagara, McLaughlin spent a long time building trust. Among the hundreds of informal conversations, she focused on more than 40 workers who had experienced occupational health problems. Since many workers were reluctant to speak out in Canada, she followed them back to Mexico and Jamaica, interviewing people individually and in small groups.

“Migrant workers pay taxes and work in a dangerous industry,” she says. “But there is no long-term comprehensive health insurance. When something goes wrong, they are usually sent home where they may not have access to adequate health care.”

In one Mexican village, she saw a community transformed by money earned by migrant workers. Homes with electricity and telephones had replaced shacks.

“But when I went inside, I found broken marriages, people suffering from alcoholism, and children who grew up resenting that a parent had gone away,” she says. “One worker came home completely paralyzed after a season in Canada. Not only had his family lost its breadwinner, it had no support from Canada or its own government for the basic necessities of life.”

Need for better enforcement

McLaughlin supplemented these interviews with archival research, as well as meetings with policymakers in Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica.

“People are aware of the issues,” she says, “but everyone passes the buck. In the end, too many people fall through the cracks, and no one takes responsibility. We need to ensure migrant workers are treated well and supported.”

Even as she teaches international development courses at the University of Guelph, McLaughlin is finalizing her PhD research, and helping to meet some of the needs she uncovered. Every few weeks, she volunteers as an outreach worker and interpreter with Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW). By visiting a mobile health clinic, seasonal workers can consult doctors, even without a health card. The clinics also allow for extended consultations to deal with complex issues.

“The clinics overcome a lot of the barriers I identified,” McLaughlin says. “Things like clinic hours, location, language, lack of time for multiple health issues, and lack of expertise in occupational health. If there are long-term issues, we can also follow-up after they’ve returned home.”

How do migrant workers find out about the clinics? McLaughlin heads down to the grocery stores again on Friday evenings to spread the word.

Mark Foss, the author of this profile, is a freelance writer based in Ottawa.

Document(s) 5 of 9