On most days, Central is Hong Kong’s swarming business district: Thousands of suits and pencil skirts transform its streets into a sea of black as myriad professionals lend a vibrant hum to one of the globe’s greatest financial centers. On Sundays, however, the briefcases and stilettos are tucked away comfortably at home, and Central becomes a haven for thousands of domestic workers to convene and rest after six days of tough labor. For the rest of the city, the sheer number of Filipino and Indonesian immigrants who gather on Sundays is a chilling reminder of the imported labor that fuels the economic success of Hong Kong and other neighboring hubs. Known widely and often notoriously as the “maid trade,” the practice is rife with problems regarding the treatment of workers by both their employers and the government.
The maid trade dates back to the 1970s, when, as a means of combating high unemployment rates and low revenue, the Filipino government encouraged the export of labor to neighboring areas such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Those who moved away from their homes to work abroad were hailed as “new economic heroes” by their government. A similar situation facilitated the growth of labor exports in Indonesia: In the mid-1970s, a government program sparked changes in the agriculture industry and forced many women into unemployment, causing them to seek job opportunities abroad. At the same time, host countries saw a rise in demand for this newly available cheap labor. In particular, the Taiwanese government’s push for highly skilled individuals — such as stay-at-home mothers — to enter the workforce resulted in a shortage of domestic labor.
The maid trade has become a far more established and expansive system than it was back in the 1970s. Today, over 300,000 domestic helpers work in households in Hong Kong, amounting to more than double the number of domestic workers the city had in 1995. These workers comprise approximately 10 percent of Hong Kong’s total working population. There is one domestic worker for every eight Hong Kong households and one for every three households with children.
Though the growing number of domestic workers in the Asia-Pacific region does not necessarily pose an ethical problem in and of itself, recent scandals involving the abuse of helpers have generated concerns about what many now identify as the epitome of “modern slavery.” In mid-January, for example, a domestic helper from Myanmar reportedly fell from the fifth floor of a building while trying to escape her job in Singapore. She claimed the job was “the same as being in hell.” After being verbally abused on countless occasions, the worker had requested to be returned to her agency and relocated to a new household, but she was apparently ignored. Then, the poor treatment worsened: She was even refused food on several days. Despite the terrible treatment, she felt trapped between an abusive boss and her family’s poverty. “I can’t make enough money to pay for my daughter’s education in Myanmar. I can make $300 a month in Singapore,” she said, “So I have to go back there whatever happens.”
In December, Indonesian helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih made headlines across Asia after speaking publicly about the eight-month torture she had endured under her employer in Hong Kong, Law Wan-tung. Working 21 hours a day, seven days a week, she was beaten with mops, hangers and ladders if she did not respond promptly to Law’s call or if she did not clean well enough. On one occasion, a vacuum cleaner tube was rammed into her mouth as punishment. When Sulistyaningsih became sick and crippled, Law left her at the Hong Kong airport with a ticket back to Indonesia and less than $10 USD after threatening to kill Erwiana’s family members if she ever spoke of the torture.
Even if these are exceptional cases, they are fundamentally the product of an abusive system. Unethical treatment of domestic workers begins early on in the advertisement and hiring process. This February, a flyer distributed in Malaysia advertising “Indonesian maids now on sale!” led to public outcry over the promotion of domestic workers as commodities. And in January, Malaysian company Robovac used the slogan, “Fire your Indonesian maid now!” in an advertisement for its automatic vacuum cleaner. Robovac’s advertisement elicited tensions between the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, prompting Indonesia’s foreign minister to phone his Malaysian counterpart to argue that the slogan was “utterly insensitive” and to urge Malaysian authorities to ban the advertisement.
Seen as commodities by the very agencies that place them, domestic workers continue to face difficulties even after they have secured a job. After making a commitment to agency services, workers often unwittingly fall into a system of debt bondage. The costs of a worker’s airfare, visa and living expenses are initially paid off by employment agencies that then require the workers to pay back these costs with the money they earn abroad. This practice creates three problems for workers. First, domestic helpers often do not have enough money left to send home during their first few months abroad due to agency expenses. Furthermore, if a worker leaves a job before the expenses are completely paid off, the debt multiplies, leaving the worker in a downward spiral of financial obligation. Finally, workers often end up trapped in jobs where they are poorly treated as they try to secure enough money to handle their debts.
Moreover, after landing jobs abroad, workers are generally excluded from the basic protections and regulations that these countries ensure their own citizens. In many Asian countries, basic minimum wage laws do not apply to foreign domestic workers. In Hong Kong, for example, the minimum wage is around $4 USD an hour — about $1,800 per month — whereas foreign domestic workers are paid the “minimum allowable wage,” currently set at approximately $530 per month. Other host nations offer an even gloomier picture: In Taiwan, foreign domestic helpers make $510 a month; in Singapore, they make between $316 and $475 a month; and in Malaysia, where the cost of living is much lower, foreign workers make between $121 and $181. These monthly wages are all well below the legal minimum wage in their respective countries. Unsurprisingly, there is a vast gap between the quality of life enjoyed by foreign domestic workers and their citizen counterparts — a gap exacerbated by the laws of these lands.
In addition to excluding domestic workers from minimum wage laws, the Hong Kong government has implemented a two-week rule, stating that if migrant workers cannot find new employment and obtain an approved work visa within two weeks of leaving their previous job, they must leave the city. This makes seeking redress impossible for helpers who have faced abuse, as a Labour Tribunal case typically takes two months to process. Moreover, as the Immigration Department admitted, not only is two weeks insufficient time to find a new employer, but also “even when you can get an employer immediately, the approval of a working visa by the Immigration Department takes 6-8 weeks.” The rule therefore disincentivizes domestic workers from quitting jobs with even the harshest working conditions.
The Hong Kong government also limits the freedom of domestic workers through the live-in law. By making it mandatory for domestic helpers to live in their employers’ homes, the law denies workers the basic freedom of choosing their own living conditions and creates the conditions for violations of privacy and other troubling abuses. In a 2012 survey conducted by Mission for Migrant Workers, 20 percent of domestic helpers reported that employers had installed video surveillance equipment in their rooms. Additionally, 25 percent stated that they had no privacy in their employers’ residence. The same survey revealed that 35 percent of helpers would opt to live outside of their employers’ home if they had the choice.
Clearly, the maid trade is a troubled institution in need of change. Yet change is hard to come by. There is high demand for more domestic help in these areas, incentivizing governments and employment agencies to continue policies that encourage the sustained growth of the domestic labor market. Moreover, the maid trade has become a pivotal economic driver for exporting countries, and their economies would suffer severely if the system were to be abolished. The Philippines, for instance, derives 11 percent of its GDP from the remittances of nine million Filipinos working overseas. And poor conditions in exporting countries like Malaysia and the Philippines mean that there remains a steady supply of workers willing to go abroad to find jobs — even though the market is fraught with abusive employers and offers workers little protection.
Both host and exporting governments are responsible for helping pave a better and healthier path for the future. Early last year, the Singaporean government warned domestic worker employment agencies about the undignified advertisements that were marketing helpers as commodities. Approaching the problem from a different angle, the Philippine government recently set a quota on the number of maids allowed to work in Singapore, aiming to lower the supply of its domestic helpers to the country by 20 percent. However, these solutions are unlikely to make a significant dent in the problem. Only through a comprehensive rethinking of policies by all governments involved — including moves to protect workers, such as adjusting the minimum allowable wage, abolishing the live-in rule and lifting restrictions on changing jobs — will the pressing human rights concerns surrounding the maid trade be properly resolved.