Foreign domestic helpers must get fairer media treatment in Hong Kong’s new normal

Local media reports often emphasise employer difficulties, which shifts the perception of blame to domestic helpers and makes their mistreatment seem inevitable
Even well-meaning public exhibitions showcasing their contributions to Hong Kong may unintentionally mislead

Janet Ho

Published: 5:30pm, 28 Sep 2023

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It has been nearly seven months since Hong Kong scrapped its mask mandate and begun returning to a “new normal”. As the city’s government and business sectors think about how to make the “Hello Hong Kong” campaign a success, it is worth asking how Hongkongers can develop a more open and welcoming attitude towards both visitors and migrants living here.

In conversations with my South Asian friends and students, one thing being reiterated is the stereotyping and prejudice they face almost daily.

For foreign domestic workers in particular, online discussions can portray them as dishonest, lazy, disobedient and inferior outsiders. But even the mainstream media in Hong Kong, such as the press, TV shows and advertisements, contribute to constructing prejudiced images that can present foreign domestic workers as an eerie and dehumanised cultural other. Last year, the use of brownface to depict a Filipino domestic helper in a local TV series made international headlines.

This year, it is good to see two exhibitions at the Tai Kwun Centre and HK News Expo on the contributions of foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong. But even at such well-meaning exhibitions, the way that migrant workers are portrayed may still be unintentionally misleading.

Attracted by the theme “Our Women Warriors”, I went to the HK News Expo. The exhibition showed how foreign domestic workers had integrated into Hong Kong, how they overcame the difficulty of being separated from their families and the discrimination experienced during the pandemic, and how they gained support from their employers and other migrant workers. The selection of news headlines and photographs from the local media was, however, problematic, I felt.

Confirming the findings of one of my recent research projects, many of the news stories tended to emphasise the difficulties faced by employers. One of the display boards acknowledged that “foreign domestic helpers leave their home country to live and work in a foreign city” but also noted that employers had to “accommodate an extra person in their cramped apartments”.

The accommodation of foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong’s already packed homes has long been a topic of debate. One recent post by a furniture store on Xiaohongshu, a social media platform in China, advertised a 68cm-wide cubbyhole designed for a domestic helper to sleep in. Some criticised the inhuman design of the furniture. Others breezily said domestic helpers who are provided with it should consider themselves lucky when so many do not even have a bed to sleep in.

An accompanying news story repeated the claim that “employers are bothered by foreign maids who play tricks – pretending to be sick and making employers fire them, no-show during contract-signing, and using different tricks to job-hop during the travel bans”. The voices of the helpers are seldom heard in these stories.

Although there are difficult aspects to the employer-domestic helper relationship, such stories continue a long and unfortunate tradition of highlighting employer difficulties and portraying domestic helpers as burdensome.

My study of local Chinese-language media reports found that emphasising the problems experienced by employers helps to shift the perception of blame to the domestic workers, making mistreatment or even violence seem inevitable. The sensationalism that often characterises stories about domestic helpers also perpetuates harmful stereotypes, and prevents readers from engaging with the deeper issues.

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To take one example, the issue of cramped flats and the resultant stress is often seemingly used to exonerate the mistreatment of helpers – but it points to the need for a review of the controversial live-in policy that prevails in Hong Kong. The many high-profile cases of helper abuse do not support the High Court’s 2021 ruling that it “cannot seriously be argued that the imposition of the live-in requirement would directly constitute, or give rise to, a violation of the fundamental rights” of foreign domestic helpers.

Holding media exhibitions on domestic helper issues is a welcome step in the right direction, but what I saw on my visit suggests the media themselves need to examine their portrayals of domestic helpers and other ethnic minority issues.

This would enable Hongkongers to develop a better understanding of the everyday difficulties faced by these groups, who make many valuable contributions to Hong Kong society and culture. It would also increase the general level of intercultural awareness, helping to overcome stereotypes and make visitors feel welcome. Only then can initiatives such as “Hello Hong Kong” have a chance of long-term success.

Janet Ho is an associate professor and head of English at Lingnan University