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HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court’s decision to maintain a mandatory rule for migrant domestic workers to live with their employers drew criticism on Tuesday (September 22) from labor rights advocates, who said it exposed foreign maids conditions similar to modern slavery.
The residence rule for Hong Kong’s 370,000 domestic workers, mostly women from poor families in the Philippines and Indonesia, has long been denounced as discriminatory and inhumane, essentially putting employees on call 24 hours a day.
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Monday’s court ruling responded to a challenge to the requirement that was filed three years ago by Filipina Nancy Lubiano. She argued that the rule was unconstitutional and violated her labor rights.
But the Court of Appeal rejected their argument and upheld an earlier lower court ruling that the living arrangement did not lead directly to exploitation.
“This is really outrageous and unacceptable,” said Dolores Balladares, president of United Filipinos in Hong Kong, which represents domestic workers in the Philippines.
“The decision is discriminatory for migrant domestic workers. It shows that we are treated as second-class citizens, as modern slaves,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
Labor groups have warned that the rule could deter reporting of forced labor, which has suffered one in six migrant domestic workers in the city, according to a 2016 study by the campaign group Justice Center Hong Kong.
The semi-autonomous Chinese city government said it was “pleased” with the ruling reaffirming the residency requirement as legal.
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Migrant domestic workers are aware of the accommodation arrangement before accepting jobs in the city, a government spokesperson said in a statement, adding that authorities “spare no effort to safeguard the rights and benefits” of the group.
Cynthia Abdon-Tellez, general manager of the Mission for Migrant Workers charity, said the residency rule was discriminatory because it only applied to foreign domestic workers, pushing some into dire living conditions.
A 2017 survey by her organization found that nearly half of foreign domestic workers did not have their own room, and some were forced to sleep in kitchens or balconies in cramped apartments.
“They live in closets, toilets or cubicles over the refrigerator or oven, as far as they can fit. In some extreme cases, they live in what look like dog houses,” said Abdón-Téllez.
Domestic workers generally have better protection in Hong Kong than anywhere else in Asia, with a legal minimum wage and a mandatory day of rest per week.
But mistreatment of maids at the financial center has come under scrutiny since the 2014 case of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, an Indonesian maid beaten by her employer and burned with boiling water.
