“‘I felt like a slave,’ says woman who worked on Granby farm under Temporary Foreign Worker Program”

Bénédicte Carole Ze says she worked on a Granby poultry farm without a single day off for almost two years. For most of that time, she says, she was prevented from having a cellphone or leaving the farm unescorted…

Ze came to Quebec from Cameroon in 2016 under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. A recruiter charged her about $10,000 for the placement, she said, promising her children would eventually be able to join her in Canada.

From September 2016 to June 2018, Ze said she routinely worked upward of 80 hours per week and was subjected to wage theft, threats and other forms of abuse. She stayed in the job to keep her immigration status, something she said her boss routinely threatened to take away…

The Amnesty International Report draws on interviews with 44 migrant workers, including Ze and 20 others who work or formerly worked in Quebec…

Almost two years after she had arrived at the farm, Ze got sick. A doctor told her to stop working. In June 2018, after her boss refused to give her a break to recover, the hairstylist picked her up and took her to Montreal.

Acting on what she now considers bad advice from an immigration consultant, Ze applied for refugee status…