Anderson (2000) found that migrant domestic workers in Europe are a varied group, Immigration status, which sometimes depends on their citizenship, largely influences the working and living conditions of migrant domestic workers in Europe, as those with legal status to stay in the receiving countries can change their employers comparatively more easily than those without. Undocumented workers are at the mercy of their employers, as they fear being deported once they come to the notice of the authorities, and at the same time some documented workers are dependent on their employers for their legal status and are thus bonded to them.
Migrant domestic workers’ relationship with the state (or more precisely, their immigration status and citizenship) is thus an important factor, as the more precarious their status is, the less willing they are to risk their employment even when faced with unsatisfactory working and living conditions. Anderson (2001) also pointed out that the living arrangements are also an important factor in migrant domestic workers’ working and
living conditions – those with live-in arrangements often find themselves having to be available at both ends of the day, which not only speaks of long hours but also ‘permanent availability’ and having their lives constantly monitored by their employers – including things that are personal and basic such as sleeping arrangements, baths, letters from home and food.
Unlike in Europe immigration status and citizenship might give migrant domestic workers different bargaining power in their relations with their employers and their working arrangements; in Hong Kong a specific visa is issued for foreign domestic helpers under a ‘Standard Employment Contract’ prescribed by the government between employers and migrant domestic workers. In short, the contracts between employers and migrant domestic workers determine the immigration status that allows migrant women to stay in Hong Kong as domestic workers. The contract is for a period of two years and it is mandated in the standard contract that the employer ‘shall provide the Helper with suitable and furnished accommodation’ under clause 5(b). The schedule of accommodation with details such as the address of the employer’s residence, the size of the employer’s residence, and the accommodation and facilities to be provided to the helpers also form part of the contract. Migrant domestic workers are only to perform the domestic duties stipulated in the contract and live in the employer’s accommodation stated in the contract. It is argued by many of the activist groups in Hong Kong that this mandatory ‘live-in’ arrangement creates vulnerable conditions for migrant domestic workers, as with those found by Anderson in her cases in Europe too – long working hours, having to be ‘permanently available’ and their lives being constantly scrutinised and monitored by their employers. One of my informants, Kate, who used to work for a British employer in Hong Kong, jokingly told me one day about her boss, whom she nicknamed ‘Hitler’: “Hitler has installed many security cameras in the house as it is an independent house in the village of Ma-on-shan”. The first time she wanted to leave the house the alarm went off and within minutes the police and firemen arrived; she was terrified.
She was made to iron clothes from 12 mid-night until 2-3am in the morning. She said she was very thin then (Fieldwork Notes, 2 June 2013).
In the statistics report published by the Mission for Migrant Workers, based on clients they had in 2013, the average working hours for migrant domestic workers are 15. 8 hours per day and 43.47% of them do not have a private room.6
Migrant domestic workers’ visas shape the way they are treated from the point they enter Hong Kong at the immigration checkpoints to the ways in which they choose to leave or stay in the city. Pan (潘, 2013), one of the interns at the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM), an NGO advocating for migrant workers’ rights, observes in her report: there are special counters designated for ‘foreign domestic helpers’ (holders of special visas issued by the Hong Kong Immigration Department for migrant domestic workers). Unlike ‘ordinary Hong Kong residents’ who can make use of the ‘electronic channel’ to clear immigration checkpoints with Hong Kong identify cards and thump-prints, migrant domestic workers need to have their passports, Hong Kong identity cards and contracts with their employers ready for the Immigration staff at the counters designated for
‘foreign domestic helpers’ to check or ‘interrogate’ before they are allowed to enter Hong Kong. Their Hong Kong identification cards bear the letter
‘W’ – a symbol that is designated for foreign domestic helpers for much of the time. These identification cards are crucial in their everyday interactions with the host society – for example in applying for mobile phone contracts, opening bank accounts etc. The symbol ‘W’, a status the host society confers upon them, makes their ‘otherness’ highly visible and that becomes grounds for rejection. This highly visible ‘otherness’ is extended beyond the border of Hong Kong to Macao: similar to the
‘interrogation’ they are subjected to in Hong Kong when going through
6 Source: Mission for Migrant Workers: Statistics for MFMW On Counseling, Shelter And Other Emergency Services in 2013: http://www.migrants.net/mfmw-2013-statistics-on-counseling-shelter-and-other-emergency-services-out-now/
customs, they are asked the reason why they are in Macau, why there is a mismatch between the photos in their passports and on their Hong Kong identification cards, and their employers’ names, when they decided to pay a visit to a city that is a one-hour boat ride away from Hong Kong. Their
‘legal’ status in Hong Kong does not free them from the fear of facing the authorities, as in the case of Anderson’s informants in Rome. Rather than the fear of being exposed and deported, the migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong are being scrutinised in the face of the authorities, and instead of hiding in the dark, the visibility of ‘otherness’ that is conferred on them through the apparatus of the state has made them a target of ‘governance’, not only within the borders of Hong Kong, but also in neighbouring cities and in their everyday interactions with the host society.
Migrant domestic workers are mandated to leave Hong Kong at the end of their contract – as home/annual paid leave with transport costs borne by their employers or, if their contracts are terminated prematurely by either of the parties, they must leave Hong Kong within two weeks, again with the transport costs borne by the employer. For those whose home bound holidays are coming up, they can be seen busily packing gifts for their families on Sundays in the streets of Central and collecting gifts that are to be passed to other domestic workers’ families who live in the same village.
For those who have their contracts prematurely terminated, most of them will try to find alternative employers within the two-week period.
Depending on the reason for the premature termination of the contract, finding an employer within the two-week period can prove challenging.
Despite the standard employment contract prescribed by the government clearly stipulating the rights and obligations of the parties to the contract, claiming these rights is not always easy.
Marian, who had been in Hong Kong for eight years and had had three employers at the time of the interview, told me about her ordeal: her contract was terminated one month before the two-year term. She found herself escorted out of her employer’s residence in the middle of the night
by a policeman as her employer claimed that she had stolen things from them. She was lucky to have a boarding house to go to in the middle of the night, but when she contacted her employer to ask for her wages the next day she was referred to the agency. The agency said that her employer would pay her wages up to the day she worked and buy her ticket home.
She refused. Her employer refused to pay her payments in lieu of the one-month notice period, payments in lieu of annual leave that she was entitled to and the transportation allowance for her trip home - all of which are entitlements based on the ‘Standard Employment Contract’ and the Employment Ordinance.
After several attempts to negotiate with her employer through the recruitment agency, she filed a complaint to the Labour Department. Her employer failed to attend the first hearing. When her employer finally attended the second hearing, she still refused to pay Marian, as she insisted that Marian had done something wrong and thus did not deserve the payment in lieu of the one-month’ notice and the rest of the payments she entitled to. Marian explained that the policeman who escorted her out of her employer’s residence simply helped her with her stuff in four rubbish bags (as she had no luggage with her at that time and was escorted out in the middle of the night) and helped her to call a taxi to get to a boarding house. There was no police statement, no evidence of her wrongdoing and she had not done anything wrong, Marian explained. Yet her employer insisted that she would not pay all that Marian was entitled to. While all of the legal proceedings were taking place, Marian had to apply for an extension to her visa to stay in Hong Kong, in order to attend the hearings, not knowing how much she could eventually claim back from her employer.
Every extra day she stayed in Hong Kong was an extra day of expenses – for food, for lodging, and for transportation to the agencies and to the Labour Department. And having an on-going case also hindered her chance of getting a new employer, as prospective employers were weary of her having an on-going case that required her attendance at hearings from time to time. At the third (private) hearing between Marian and her employer
(without the Labour Officer present), her employer finally agreed to pay all she was entitled to except that instead of the payment in lieu of the one-month notice period, she would only pay half. Marian said to me in an interview:
(if) I don’t agree with it, I don’t know how many more days or if it would be another month to spend in HK without like, no income, the claims would be just nothing. I just said, it’s really been a rough month for me… it’s ok for me, you pay me then (Interview by author, 17 August, 2014).
Although Marian managed to get back her full claim by talking to her employer’s husband without her employer knowing, Marian’s experience illustrates migrant domestic workers’ difficulty in pursuing their rightful claims. Every single day without a result is a day of extra cost with no income and at the end of the day it is very likely that the claims they manage to get back will be used to pay for the expenses they incur while pursuing the cases. As Constable (2007) points out with the words of Melville Boase (1991: 90, from Constable 2007: 119): “No matter what fine words one may have written on paper, they only have significance or meaning if they can be enforced” and unlike Marian, who managed to pursue the case without the help of others, many migrant workers simply do not have the confidence, ability, financial resources or time to navigate the maze of Hong Kong’s state apparatus governing “foreign domestic helpers”. In a way, like the Philippines state and the private recruitment agencies which create and sustain the ‘docility’ of Filipino workers through a rhetoric of ‘new national heroes’, training programmes and mandated certification, Hong Kong’s state apparatus makes it difficult for migrant workers who do not have the resources to pursue the ‘legal route’ for their rightful claims, which also sustains the ‘docility’ of foreign domestic helpers.
The reality of having an employment contract prematurely terminated and losing the accommodation, food and income that come along with that
employment is daunting. Yet some of those who manage to find help and navigate through the web of bureaucracy find the experience life-changing.
Rose, a volunteer at the Mission, who was also a leader of a grassroots organisation and was often seen speaking in public, had been in Hong Kong since 1991. She was underpaid (the Standard Employment Contract stipulates a minimum allowable wage that employers have to pay domestic workers and the latest is HKD $ 4,110 per month, still way below the minimum wage per hour at HKD $ 30 per hour, considering many of them work more than 10 hours per day) for her first job. When she complained to her employer, she was sacked. She told me:
“So I went to Bethune House, I stayed there and there I saw different kinds of problems for migrants. Of course I could not believe my fellow Filipinos, fellow coworkers were facing such problems you know because every time I saw my cousin in the pictures they were all happy… it seemed (as if) they did not have problems. When I stayed in Bethune House I was totally shocked with what I saw. I could not imagine the problems these people were facing: I saw (victims of) rape and different nationalities. That was the start. I involved myself in the organisations. Because in Bethune House I learnt many things.
Because then we finished the case in the Labour Tribunals for almost 10 months. It was very long so I had time to help others so I got to know the process to (file cases to) the Labour
Department… It's an experience where I learnt many things. So I involved myself and I really spent time learning things (such as) the process (and) how to defend the situation of migrants there etc. I have involved myself until now (Interview by author, 29 August 2013, brackets added by author).
Sara was in Hong Kong for 28 years and she returned to the Philippines for good in December 2013. She was recognised for her contribution to the migrant community in a ‘Thanksgiving’ event organised by the Mission for migrant workers. She continues her organisational work in the Philippines.
She answered my interview questions via email after she left Hong Kong (I lost the opportunity to interview her because I didn’t know she was leaving for good):
“I started my involvement in the organisation in 1987. I was terminated from my job at that time and I was at the Bethune House for temporary shelter; the Mission For Migrant Workers referred me there. On Sundays, there were members of the Association of Concerned Filipinos in Hong Kong (ACFIL-HK), members and officers who would go to Bethune House and they would talk to the residents of Bethune House. They happened to talk to me and they shared with us what their organisations were doing and they encouraged us to be a member. I did. And in 1988, I was elected as the new President, despite my little knowledge of doing organising. I was also invited to be a part of the UNIFIL Secretariat at that time and that’s how I started my organising work with the Filipino migrants” (E-mail, 16 March 2014).
They are among the leaders of the grassroots movement of migrant workers in Hong Kong – a movement that now spans different nationalities in the city. Their actions could be seen in the massive mobilisation of migrant domestic workers to join protests asking for the scrapping of the two-week rule that mandated that migrant domestic workers leave Hong Kong within two weeks of the last day of their contract; protests against social exclusions and discrimination; rallies asking for the ratification of the ILO Convention 189 - Domestic Workers Convention, 2011; and one of the biggest mobilisations, asking for justice for Erwiana, an Indonesian domestic worker who was abused by her employer. Images of her bruised and seriously injured body depicted ‘modern slavery in Hong Kong’ and were circulated in media around the world (please refer to chapter six for more details).
Erwiana’s case (Red Door News Hong Kong, 2014) reveals the shocking extent to which migrant domestic workers can be tortured and abused within the confines of their employer’s residence without anyone noticing, even though in law, Erwiana was entitled to ‘equal statutory rights and benefits as local employees’, including ‘rest days, statutory holidays, annual leave, sickness allowance, work injury compensation, etc.’ and has ‘free access to the services provided by the Labour Department (LD) such as consultation and conciliation services’, as stated in a paper presented to the Legislative Council of HKSAR in February 2014, jointly prepared by the
Labour and Welfare Bureau, Labour Department and Immigration Department in response to concerns raised after Erwiana’s case came to light. The paper continued, “Erwiana’s case has aroused concerns in the community over how to protect the rights and benefits of FDHs, including their personal safety and the regulation of EAs (employment agencies) and
“the Government considers that the most effective way to resolve the problem is to tackle it at its root. The Government will continue to request that the Indonesian authorities adopt proactive measures to alleviate Indonesian domestic helpers of the debt burden that results in the helpers having to pay a huge amount of intermediary and training fees before they come to Hong Kong” (“Briefs for Legisative Council on Policies Relating to Foreign Domestic Helpers and Regulation of Employment Agencies,”
2014).
The fear of losing their jobs and the amount of debt incurred as part of their training and certification make many of the migrant domestic workers financially vulnerable (the extent of the agency fee overcharges differs in Indonesia and the Philippines – whilst in the Philippines the agency fee has been outlawed but many agencies still charge it, while in Indonesia it is sanctioned by the state and the ‘standard’ fee ranges from about HKD 15,000 to HKD 21,000) and renders assistance from and the rules of law available to them under the Hong Kong government, meaningless. In an indirect way the statement issued to the Legislative Council recognises that some of the changes required to make migrant domestic workers less vulnerable lie outside of its jurisdiction.
The cases discussed above illustrate the extent to which some of the migrant workers in Hong Kong experience harsh working conditions, unreasonable employer-relations and extreme brutality on a more structural level, which are enforceable by law. The subtler discipline imposed by employers at a household level, which provides the background to illuminate migrant workers’ everyday lives as domestics, is described in the following section
for a further discussion of their public lives outside the household in the rest of the chapters.
In both Hong Kong and Taiwan, where women increasingly participate in the workforce, the hiring of migrant domestic workers has become a way to
In both Hong Kong and Taiwan, where women increasingly participate in the workforce, the hiring of migrant domestic workers has become a way to