Tag Archives: awareness needed
March 15, 2016 by IdealisticRebel
Hong Kong Maids treated like slaves
Hong Kong's maids are often treated like slaves
by Sophia Yan
Hong Kong has more than 300,000 migrant domestic workers, many of whom come from Indonesia or the Philippines.
Thousands of domestic workers in Hong Kong are treated little better than modern slaves, according to a new report.
Justice Centre, a non-profit human rights organization, says its study of 1,049 domestic helpers found that one in six are victims of forced labor and face abuses such as physical violence, wage exploitation and deprivation of food and rest. Of those, 14% were trafficked.
Hong Kong is one of the world's richest cities, a financial center packed with shiny skyscrapers, luxury boutiques, and billionaire tycoons. It's also home to 336,600 migrant domestic workers. Based on the report's findings, as many as 56,000 may be in forced labor.
"Hong Kong must come clean; the government can no longer afford to simply sweep these problems under the carpet," said Jade Anderson and Victoria Wisniewski Otero, co-authors of the report, which studied workers from eight countries.
One maid who escaped an abusive employer says she was kicked, punched, fed rotten food and forced to work 20 hours a day for nearly a year.
"I felt very, very scared," Mun, 23, told CNNMoney. "I thought all work in Hong Kong was like this … [and that] nobody can help me."
Hong Kong started allowing foreign domestic helpers to work in the territory in the 1970s to make up for a shortage of local staff. Many come via agencies direct from their home countries — Indonesia, the Philippines and other Asian countries — and don't meet their employer before signing a contract requiring them to live and work in their homes. By law, they're only entitled to one day off a week.
"Migrant domestic workers are uniquely vulnerable to forced labor, because the nature of their occupation can blur work-life boundaries and isolate them behind closed doors," the Justice Centre said in the report.
The Hong Kong government said it was committed to protecting the rights of foreign domestic helpers.
"Our local legislation provides a solid and proven framework to combat human trafficking," a spokesman for the Security Bureau said in a statement emailed to CNN.
Punched, kicked, and slapped
Mun arrived early last year, excited to start a job she hoped would help support her ailing mother back home.
Her monthly wage was HK$4,110 ($530), the legal minimum at the time, and four times more than what she was earning at a restaurant in Indonesia scrubbing dishes and waiting tables.
As required by law, she lived with her employer. Her room was a narrow closet, much smaller than the 80 square feet stated on her contract.
About a month in, the physical abuse started. She was punched, kicked, and slapped by her employer for missing a spot, or putting things back in the wrong place.
Mun, who declined to give her full name because her case is still being investigated by local authorities, said the family she worked for only allowed her to eat food that had gone bad, and she would often get sick as a result. That left her with little energy for the 20-hour days, and her wages were often docked.
But she couldn't leave, she said, because the recruitment agency kept her passport. She also owed huge sums, up to 75% of her monthly wage, as the agency had forced her to take out a loan from a local money lender to repay job placement fees.
One day late last year, after another beating, she finally decided to flee when the family was out, making her way to a local shelter. She weighed only 34 kilograms (75 pounds), and had multiple cuts and bruises all over her body. She showed CNNMoney photographs taken by a friend that day.
Nowhere to turn
Mun is among the group of domestic workers the Justice Centre says are most vulnerable: they're on their first contract, have significant debt linked to their recruitment and were hired outside the city.
The group wants Hong Kong to enact legislation to make forced labor a standalone offense, abolish the requirement for domestic helpers to live with employers, regulate recruitment agencies more closely, stipulate what would be considered appropriate accommodation and food, and set maximum working hours.
Other advocacy groups have made similar appeals, triggered by a major abuse case that came to light in 2014.
Indonesian maid Erwiana Sulistyaningsih was kept prisoner and tortured in the home of Hong Kong housewife Law Wan-tung, who deprived her of food, sleep and payment for long hours of work. Law was later found guilty by a local court of imprisoning and abusing her maid.
The successful prosecution was a rare exception, and many more abuse cases are never pursued, advocates say.
One in three Hong Kong households with children have a maid, according to the Justice Centre. These migrant laborers make up 10% of Hong Kong's working population, and the majority of them are women.
This is such a heartbreaking story. Another group of women who are being bought and sold for their bodies and for their labor. How can human beings feel that they have the right to own another human being?
Slavery has been a part of human history as far back as least the Egyptian Empire. But at some point since that time, we humans should have come to the conclusion that slavery is totally and completely wrong. Selling people, male and female, as sexual slaves is about the lowest a human being can go.
There should be international prisons for people who enslave others. It is something that should earn them a life-long sentence. The slave traders are robbing families of some of their family members, and decreasing their life spans. Slave traders are taking human beings and, once again, turning them into animals. The slaves are left hopeless and feeling this is what the deserve. It is not.
Every one of us on this planet is worthy of all that they can accomplish. We are all children of the universe. We must do all we can to support and assist each other to accomplish their full potential. Slavery is a curse on human civilization that stems from some people thinking they are better and more deserving than others. We are all equal and we need to remember that all that we are is in our souls. So it is a heinous crime to buy and sell other human beings. We need to all agree on this.
LONDON, May 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A Filipina maid in Hong Kong has published stark photographs of burned and beaten domestic workers to highlight the "modern slavery" she says has long been the city's shameful secret.
"Hong Kong is a very modern, successful city but people treat their helpers like slaves," said Xyza Cruz Bacani, whose black and white portraits won her a scholarship from the Magnum Foundation to start studying at New York University this month.
"The abuse happens behind doors. It's common but no one talks about it, so I want to tell their stories, I want to tell people it's not OK to treat your domestic workers that way."
Bacani is one of the 330,000 domestic workers in the former British colony, most of them from the Philippines and Indonesia.
She told how maids are frequently forced to sleep on toilets, kitchen floors, cabinet tops or even baby-changing tables because they are not given beds.
Many work up to 19-hour days. Some are underpaid or not paid at all. Others are denied food or beaten, she said.
"It was a big shock to me when I listened to their stories and they told me they slept on toilets, that their boss slapped them or their boss didn't even feed them," Bacani, a self-taught photographer, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
"It shocked me how people could treat other people like that. It's very barbaric. When I talk about it I feel angry."
SHELTER FOR ABUSED WORKERS
Bacani, who comes from a village in Nueva Vizcaya, moved to Hong Kong when she was 19, giving up her nursing studies so she could help pay for her younger brother and sister's schooling.
For the last decade she has worked alongside her mother for an Australian-Chinese businesswoman in the affluent Mid-Levels neighbourhood on Hong Kong island.
She rises at 5:30 most mornings, serves breakfast, cleans the apartment and looks after her boss's six grandchildren, who visit almost daily.
But whether she is shopping in the market or taking the children to the park, she always has her camera in her bag.
Last year Bacani volunteered at Bethune House, a shelter for abused domestic helpers, and was horrified by what she saw.
"Many work until 1 a.m. and start again at 5. They work every day without stopping. I have friends who are underpaid and others have been physically hurt," she said.
"It's modern slavery. It's 2015 and people should be more educated, but still it happens."
THIRD DEGREE BURNS
Bacani's most shocking photos are of a Filipina woman called Shirley who suffered extensive third degree burns when a pot of boiling soup fell on her after someone left it on a rack.
Her boss said it was an accident, but Bacani says he refused Shirley medical leave and fired her after she fainted.
The maid started legal proceedings but appeared to be getting nowhere. Bacani says things changed when the CNN website reproduced her photos of Shirley's burns.
"After we published some of the images her boss paid her compensation for her injuries, her dismissal and three years of salary because she cannot work," Bacani said.
Shirley's story is not uncommon. The abuse suffered by the city's domestic workers made headlines this year when a Hong Kong woman was jailed for six years for attacking and abusing her Indonesian maids and threatening to kill their relatives.
The case sparked calls for Hong Kong's government to revise its policies on migrant workers.
Campaigners say domestic workers are often reluctant to report abuse for fear of being deported, trapping them in a cycle of exploitation.
The government stipulates employers should provide reasonable accommodation, free food and a minimum monthly wage of HK$4,110 ($530).
But Bacani says many maids are paid less, especially Indonesians who are often treated worse than Filipinas, partly because of the language barrier.
She describes herself as "one of the few lucky ones". She says her boss is a "great lady" who encouraged her to apply for the Magnum programme, which aims to help photographers tell stories that can advance human rights in their home countries.
Bacani plans to return to Hong Kong later this year to mount an exhibition of her images of domestic workers.
"Awareness brings change," she says. "I hope my work can change people's perspective on domestic workers and help end this modern slavery." (Reporting by Emma Batha, Editing by Katie Nguyen)
Posted in Rebel Posts
Tagged abuse, awareness needed, domestic workers, heinous, Hong Kong, human slavery, torture