Is HK becoming another Middle East?
    Deaths of domestic workers show violence against women and migrants     and flaws in HK migrant policies

21 April 2008

The spate of deaths of domestic workers – three in less than a month – in Hong Kong should ring alarm bells. Is Hong Kong turning out to be another Middle East?

High incidences of tragic deaths among migrant workers, especially foreign domestic workers, are usually reported in various countries in the Middle East. There, women domestic workers have been killed, died in mysterious circumstances or are now in jail or in death row for killing their employers who reportedly abused them. Marilou Ranario and May Vecina in Kuwait are some of our most recent cases.

Hong Kong seems to be catching up with this record.

Vicenta "Vicky" Flores was the third victim of tragic death to hit the headlines. She was a 32-year old domestic worker at Discovery Bay whose dead body was found in Tung Chung Bay on Lantau Island.

Previously, Melba Alava Pardua, 50, from Roxas, Isabela, was found dead on April 7 by the security officer on the podium of her employers' apartment building at Comfort Terrace, North Point. On the same day, another OFW, Carolin Agabin Dacqui, 32, from Ilagan, Isabela, reportedly leapt from her own room at her employers' residence on the 9th floor at Hoi Chu Court, Aberdeen. Meanwhile, we also remember those migrants who were victims of horrendous crimes. Just recently, an Indonesian domestic worker was found stabbed twenty times inside her employers' dog kennel.

After a little more than a week of investigation, the Hong Kong Police reportedly declared that Flores' case is closed. However, residents of Discovery Bay, Flores' family and friends, and fellow overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are not convinced that the Hong Kong Police has done a systematic and thorough probe of the case.

The Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW), that has been providing welfare services to FDWs for more than two decades now, believes that Flores' death has not yet been fully investigated and it shall be the height of injustice to let the matter rest without discovering the truth.

These cases of deaths - be that of accidents, suicide or murder, are highly alarming.  Beyond individual circumstances, social factors play a role. These indicate serious and systemic problems with the working and living conditions that migrant workers in Hong Kong are subjected to.

Foreign domestic workers are some of the most vulnerable in Hong Kong. The slave-like working and living conditions induce immense physical and psychological stress to the worker. Job insecurity, financial difficulties due to low wages, debt bondage and increasing financial needs, family separation, occupational hazards, heavy work load, and lack of rest take their toll on the worker.

If the number of labor and police complaints and cases are to be a measure, violence against migrants in Hong Kong is prevalent. Physical abuse, sexual assaults and rapes, and even murder in and outside the workplace are indicative of this.

Hong Kong society cannot deny the reality of this vulnerability. It has to consider, then, that there are different policies set by the HK government that lay down the conditions for this vulnerability of migrant women to abuse and exploitation. Some of the major ones are:

1. The New Conditions of Stay (NCS) or more commonly called the Two-Week Rule. It limits the allowable period that an FDW can legally stay in Hong Kong to two weeks after the termination of contract with only few exceptions. They can only stay longer if they have ongoing cases and even then, they are not allowed to work.

This rule has forced FDWs to endure even inhuman treatment of employers in order to hold on to their jobs. Despite physical, mental and sexual abuses, FDWs are forced to stay in order to keep their jobs and continue to support their families.

2. The mandatory live-in employment arrangement for FDWs. Because of this condition, FDWs are made to work even up to 20 hours a day, their privacy are taken away from them, and they are made prone to abusive actions.

3. The unjust wage level and the wage cuts in recent years. Especially in times of economic crisis, the wage of FDWs is one of the first to suffer the brunt of pay cuts. This has caused a great reduction in the economic capacity of FDWs and has been a source of their financial woes.

It is worth mentioning that many cases of violation of rights inside the household setting complained by the FDWs are also not seriously investigated by the HK police because they are considered as "domestic problems". These include forced confiscation of passports and other personal belongings of FDWs, verbal abuse, among others. In contrast, when employers accuse their maids of theft for example, the FDWs are immediately hauled into jail. Where is justice in this?

In the reported of suicides of Pardua and Dacqui, it was reported that the reason of the former was financial problem while the latter was said to have killed herself because her contract was terminated after only 10 months of working with her employer.

Whether Flores drowned, committed suicide or, even murdered, there can be no doubt that the general conditions of work for FDWs in Hong Kong contributed to her demise. 

We call for the Hong Kong Police to conduct a full probe on the death of Flores. Her death shows the prevalence of violence against FDWs. On this light, it is now even more urgent and right for the Hong Kong government to review its policies on FDWs and rescind those that are detrimental to migrants' rights.

Flores deserves full justice. So do her fellow FDWs.