Bedtime stories
of Hong Kong’s helpers

Rosie

For domestic helpers, the smallest complaint may mean them losing their jobs. If their contract is terminated, helpers have only 14 days to find a new employer, after which their visa is cancelled and they must return to their countries. For Rosie, looking on the bright side was the key to surviving her first job in Hong Kong: 12 years of sleeping in a storage room and in the living room of a family of four’s flat.

HOW ROSIE’S DAYS ARE SPENT

Even with her community's support, Rosie decided not to report this as a sexual harassment case. She couldn't risk losing her job. To her, her experience was still tolerable as long as she wasn't physically abused.

Rosie eventually finished her contract and has now lived with a new employer for two years, sleeping with a privilege called privacy.

Mirna

There are no regulations on official working hours for domestic helpers in Hong Kong. Overworking is generally normalised when there is no separation between working and living space.

Mirna's experience with her first employer in Hong Kong was no exception. She lived with a mother, her two children and their grandmother. Her employer's husband recently died and she was suffering from severe depression and insomnia.

HOW MIRNA’S DAYS ARE SPENT

Mirna's employer was willing to cover her year-long medication. But that only meant she had no choice but to continue another contract with the same conditions. No employer would ever want to hire a sick helper.

Mirna finished her contract after she recovered. She now stays with a kinder employer and sleeps in her own room.

Eti

Even with regulations, there will always be domestic workers who are forced to live in unsuitable accommodation. But conditions for workers trafficked illegally can be so much worse. Eti, who was brought into Hong Kong on a tourist visa, was told she would be looking after her employer’s pets but was made to do more than domestic labour.

RISING DEMAND

Foreign domestic workers began to arrive in Hong Kong in the 1970s, coinciding with the city’s economic boom, an increase of two-income families, women entering the workforce, and the rise of labour export programmes in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. With no ideal elderly care for Hong Kong’s ageing population, the demand for domestic workers is likely to increase over the years. The only recent decline was when Covid-related travel restrictions were in place.

Domestic helpers and Hong Kong’s ageing population

relationship between live-in helpers and fertility

A Baptist University study has found that married couples in Hong Kong who employ live-in domestic helpers tend to have more children than those without such workers. Because work-family conflict is a major barrier for married couples to actualize their fertility ideals, domestic outsourcing that relieves women from the burden of domestic labour may help to reduce the gap between ideal and actual fertility, the study authors say.

CHILDBIRTH CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY AMONG HONG KONG COUPLES

LIVE-IN ARRANGEMENT

Until 2003, it was legal for a foreign domestic worker to rent her own room and live out as long as this was indicated in the employment contract. In 2003, the government changed the law to prevent domestic workers from taking part-time jobs, which had created competition with other local Hong Kong workers, requiring them to live with their employer under the new employment law.

Domestic workers have long called for the rule to be relaxed. Many claim the arrangement heightens the risk of abuse seen in the shocking case of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih in 2014. But the government maintains that the requirement is an essential feature of the importation scheme designed and developed to meet the demand for live-in domestic service. Lifting the rule may have serious repercussions for Hong Kong’s economy and society, it says.

The Labour Department says employers should provide their helpers with suitable accommodation with reasonable privacy. Aside from "made-do beds" in the corridor or sharing a room with an adult/teenager of the opposite sex, there is no clear definition of "unsuitable" accomodation.

The Mission for Migrant Workers, an NGO in Hong Kong, published research in 2017 after a survey of 3,075 domestic helpers on their live-in arrangements. An overwhelming majority of the respondents, or 98%, were women.

Number of people in employer’s household

Most lived in a medium-sized three-bedroom flat with one toilet. Only 32% had their own private room for personal use. The rest used rooms with other functions or did not have a private room.

BEDROOM ARRANGEMENTS

Despite the survey data being collected seven years ago, similar complaints keep being made to The Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU), other unions and consulates as no new regulations have been implemented about the live-in arrangement.