The final report of the Trans Latinas Rompiendo Barreras (TLRB) project is now available.

​The TLRB project was a collaboration between members of the trans Latina community in Toronto, practitioners at the Centre for the Spanish Speaking Peoples (CSSP), students and researchers from the Global Migration and Health Initiative (GloMHI) and the University of Toronto. 

Given the radical forms of exclusion experienced by trans Latina individuals in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), this program represents a collective search for community resilience through meaningful learning, the promotion of supportive relationships, increased access to resources, and practices of self-care. The project was made up of two main activities, a series of twelve bi-weekly workshops and a monthly self-care and peer advocacy (SPA) drop-in group organized by workshop graduates.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) recently issued a landmark decision condemning Canada for denying access to essential health care on the basis of immigration status based on the case of Ms. Nell Toussaint. The UNHRC has called on Canada to review its national legislation in order “to ensure that irregular migrants have access to essential healthcare to prevent a reasonably foreseeable risk that can result in loss of life”. A number of members of Canada’s health community are signing an open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ministers Ginette Taylor and Ahmed Hussen, calling for federal government action around this issue.

Please consider signing the open letter.

Individual and organizational signatures are being collected until Friday, December 14th, 2018, with a plan for wide media release on International Migrants Day (December 18th). Please also share this among your colleagues, but do not share this directly with media, until the final letter with signatories has been released.

If you have any questions, please contact the team leading this initiative.

The next Harney Lecture in Ethnicity will be given by Tahseen Shams of University of Toronto on "Echoes of Conflict and Solidarity in Cyberspace: How Social Media Shapes Immigrant Identity-Making."

The event will take place on November 29, 2018 12:00-2:00pm, in Room 208N at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and is open to the public. 
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The Migrant Mothers Project has just released an infographic titled "Recognizing Signs of Migrant Caregiver Abuse & Exploitation" to raise awareness on the workplace abuse and exploitation faced by migrant caregivers in Canada from their employers due to the current policy context. 

OMNI Focus Portuguese interview GloMHI Co-Directors Dr. Denise Gastaldo and Dr. Andrea Cortinois to discuss Global Migration and Health. They discuss GloMHI's editorial on 'Fractured Families and Communities as an Effect of Migration and Structural Violence'.

"The idea of using the term fractured families is because it emphasizes the violent nature of choices that are made because there is no better course."

New research on the impact of Texas demanding local law enforcement to work with federal immigration individuals found:

• 2,800 Rio Grande Valley residents were deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2017 
  
• 1,800 US-born children in Rio Grande Valley had a parent deported by ICE in 2017

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They also determined that fears of deportation and family separation negatively impact child and family health.

• "The incidence of childhood PTSD is potentially higher in the Valley. Our survey found nearly 1 in 5 children of all survey respondents (regardless of immigration status) experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), compared with 1 in 20 children in the US."
• "Immigration stress impacts kids’ school success. Our survey found that 40% of undocumented respondents have a child who shows symptoms of school avoidance anxiety."
• "Fears of deportation also harm adult health. Our research shows that adults in the Rio Grande Valley are also experiencing mental and physical health challenges, from anxiety to difficulty accessing medical care."

They propose a public health approach to local law enforcement practices, in order to make sure the health and safety of Rio Grande Valley children and families stay protected. 

A study by researchers at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health examined the premature birth rate in NYC within US-born and immigrant mothers before and after the 2016 presidential election. The researchers decided to study birth rates as they can reflect population health. Risk factors for premature birth include stress and trauma. 

"The new study found rates of preterm births overall have gone up since the election, but the trend is being driven by immigrant groups targeted by the Trump administration, especially Latinas. Non-Hispanic white women born in the US in the same period saw their premature birth rates go down slightly."
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The Toronto Latin American Film Festival (LATAFF), Sony Center Canada and the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples present: Trans Latina Ontario (TLO) Digital Stories.

A Q & A will also take place following the 8 short films:

"Unbroken" by Celeste Bilbao-Joseph (Argentina) 
"He Found Himself Within Her" by Adalyn Díaz (Mexico)
"It's Been a Long, Long Way" by Alex Freeland (Argentina)
"Arrival of Miss Latismiere" by Gigi Latismiere (Mexico)
"Thank You Canada" by Maria Clara De Sena (Brazil)
"Why I'm Here" by Paulina (Mexico)
"Confident Woman" by Tanya (Ecuador)
"Ubuntu, I Am Because We Are" by Xica DaDiva (Honduras)
 
The event is free and will take place on Friday, October 19, 2018 from 7:00-10:00 PM at the George Ignatieff Theatre in Toronto. 

University of Toronto's Hart House and The Centre for Community Partnerships are hosting a screening of the documentary Migrant Dreams, which highlights the exploitation of migrant workers in Canada who arrived through the Government of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. A discussion will take place after the screening with Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan, Associate professor and Lead Investigator of The Migrant Mothers Project, and Sara Asalya, Palestinian immigrant and one of RBC’s top 25 immigrants of Canada.

The event is free and will take place on Oct. 10, 2018, 6-8:30 pm in the East Common Room of Hart House.

An opinion piece published in The Globe and Mail by Y.Y. Brandon Chen, Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, highlights how we must not exclude irregular migrants from healthcare. 

Currently, people residing in Canada with irregular legal status are typically not able to access any health benefits and are required to cover the cost of health necessities and emergencies themselves or depend on charities.

Mr. Chen conveys that "people who are often mislabelled as 'illegals' are actually a diverse group and their life situations are typically much more nuanced than what the simplistic label conveys. Most irregular migrants in Canada have had permission to be here at one point and only fell out of such legal status some time later."