Bénédicte Ze endured nearly two years of sexual assault, harassment, grueling 80-hour work weeks, racism, and relentless abuse at the hands of her employer on a farm in Quebec. Her experience is not an isolated case but rather a reflection of Canada’s deeply flawed Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which has been described as an inherently exploitative system that enables modern slavery.

“I did not expect to be a slave here”

Ze arrived in Canada from Cameroon in 2016 on a closed work permit, tying her legal status in the country to a single employer. She was promised fair wages and good working conditions to support her children back home, but instead, she found herself trapped in an exploitative cycle of forced labor and coercion.

“I did not expect to be a slave here,” Ze stated in an article by CBC, adding that “an animal had more value than me. I had no rights.”

According to the Toronto Star, upon her arrival, she was told by her recruiter that she had to “be available for sexual services for her employer.”

“What I lived through amounts to enslavement — what I experienced in Canada is inhumane,” Ze said.

“I’ve been debased and devalued,” she said, adding that she knows many like her who have suffered similar exploitation under Canada’s temporary foreign worker (TFW) program.

Read more