On July 20, 2017, I met Jocelyn Godroy. Jocelyn made the hard decision to leave the Philippines to seek better opportunities for her family. She came to Canada as a live-in caregiver in 2004. Prior to coming to Canada, she worked in Hong Kong as a domestic helper for 4 years. She was separated from her children for 13 years:
Meeting with caregiver Joy's family in Toronto
Jocelyn suffer the heartache silently as she did not see her children grow up. She missed their birthdays, graduations, and communions. She can’t even be by their side when they were sick. On top of that, her marriage has ended and all she ever wanted was for her children to have better opportunities. With courage and conviction, Jocelyn spoke up and spoke out. At a press conference in Toronto, Jocelyn told her heartbreaking story publicly for the first time. With ongoing advocacy with many allies, together we were able to get the Minister of Immigration to change the policy with processing times. On December 3, 2017, in his announcement about the change in average processing time for caregivers to 12 months, the Minister cited Jocelyn’s heartbreaking story.