Hong Kong domestic helpers' dreams dashed by debt
Caught between unscrupulous employment agencies and an apathetic government, many Hong Kong domestic helpers find themselves locked in a vicious cycle of poverty, write Angharad Hampshire and Georgia Feldmanis
Jorial Funtaniel is 32 and has four children under the age of 12. She recently started work at a new job in Hong Kong with big hopes and dreams.
Like many working mothers in Hong Kong, she hopes to fund her family's day-to-day life and her children's education, and to save for the future. Like them, she leaves her children in the care of someone else while she is at work. But unlike local working mothers, she will only get to see her children once every two years.
As a domestic helper, Funtaniel will be looking after someone else's home and family in order to provide for her own. And she is compelled to do so by economics. The two main countries that supply domestic helpers to Hong Kong, the Philippines and Indonesia (at least for now; Jakarta has said it will phase out sending domestic helpers overseas, starting next year), face high rates of poverty and unemployment.
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A recently published report, "Modern Slavery in East Asia" by social enterprise Farsight, found that of prospective domestic helpers responding in Indonesia, 26 per cent were employed, compared with 16 per cent in the Philippines. In Indonesia, the average salary of respondents with a job was HK$932 a month; in the Philippines it was HK$1,219.
