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Hong Kong
Bethune House has become a safe haven away from home and a source of hope and strength to many women migrants and their children. It has become a place for women of different nationalities to meet, share and learn from each other’s cases, cultures and traditions. Moreover, it has become a stepping stone for the residents to gather and act together not only in response to their situation in Hong Kong, but to think and respond as well to issues and concerns back home.
Most of the residents in Bethune House are women migrants who were made vulnerable due to their traumatic experiences of working in a foreign land. They have been victimised because they were not aware of their rights and have little or no knowledge as to what action they can take to remedy their situation.
In civilised societies, domestic helpers are not slaves but many of these women are treated as such. This explains the rise of complaints and the cases being filed by the hundreds. There may be no existing studies to assess their impact or their contribution to Hong Kong society and its economy but clearly these are the people that enable their employers to work by taking care of their children and doing a myriad of domestic chores to keep their households running smoothly.
485 clients came to our shelter in 2006. This is more than one distressed woman per day. More than 70% of them were Indonesians. A significant portion of these women run away from their employers because of inhumane conditions of work, gross violations of their contract and physical and sexual assault. Non-payment of wages, illegal salary deductions, and no rest days remain the top reasons for labour cases. However, compared to 2003, the percentage of police-related cases rose by 6%. The most common are physical and sexual abuse cases followed by the increased incidence of domestic workers being accused of theft by their employers.
Here are some of the cases: -
- IKA, an Indonesian, was black and blue when she was rescued by a fellow domestic helper. Some of the police who responded brought her to the hospital and then later to the shelter. She was not physically assaulted but because of long working hours, only two hours sleep, she often fell to the ground and hit her legs, arms or face. She was not allowed to take a bath for two months.
- DJIMI, an Indonesian domestic helper, was slashed with a very sharp knife three times in the left arm by the father of her employer. She was bleeding when she escaped from her employer’s flat.
- VINU, a Nepali domestic helper, was raped by her Nepali employer. After more than a year of gruelling case work, the police case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
Most of these women have left their families back home and therefore they are alone and have neither economic nor emotional support. Simply, they have no one to turn to and have no means to fend for themselves.
The government system in dealing with the responsibilities of employers is long and complicated and in those cases where migrant woman are involved, where they do not have any accommodation or any means to support themselves, the help of charity is needed.
At the moment, shelters and crisis centres for women migrants and their children, with corresponding psycho-social and labour-related assistance programmes, are very few in Hong Kong. The gap between the growing need of distressed migrant women and public and private welfare service provision is huge. We believe our work will help significantly to ensure welfare provision and empowerment for these women migrants.
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