Citing inadequate accommodations, a group of Hong Kong-based domestic helpers is pushing for the scrapping of a policy requiring maids to live with their employers.
Mission for Migrant Workers general manager Cynthia Tellez said helpers should be given an option to live elsewhere, Hong Kong’s The Standard reported on Friday.
“Domestic workers are chosen because they can do full-time work for a fixed monthly wage, not because they are live-in,” Tellez said.
The Standard report said the mission conducted a survey of more than 3,000 workers from June 2012 to January 2013.
It found 35 percent of the workers interviewed prefer to live outside their employers’ flats, with 30 percent saying they do not have suitable accommodation.
Some said they had to share a room with boys or sleep in kitchens, corridors and toilets.
Another group, the Confederation of Trade Unions, appeared to support such a move.
The Standard report quoted the group’s coordinator Lam Ying-hing as saying a live-out arrangement may enhance domestic workers’ privacy, rest time, work safety and life satisfaction.
But Hong Kong’s Immigration Department said the arrangement of living outside employers’ homes will dampen the job opportunities for helpers.
The report noted questions had been raised about the government’s mandatory live-in policy earlier this month, after six Filipino helpers were arrested in Discovery Bay for violating the rule. — LBG, GMA News
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
“Safety and health at work every day!”
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar to carry out the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry recommendations against serious violations of Forced Labour and Freedom of Association protocols.
Accept National Unity Government
(NUG) of Myanmar.
Reject Military!
#WearMask #WashHands #Distancing #TakePicturesVideos
Monthly Observances:
March – Women’s Role in History Month
April – Month of Planet Earth
Weekly Observances:
Last Week of March: Protection and Gender Fair Treatment of the Girl Child Week
Last Week of April – World Immunization Week
Daily Observances:
Mar 25 – International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transallantic Slave Trade
Mar 27– Earth Hour
Apr 21 – Civil Service Day
Apr 22 – World Earth Day
Apr 28 – World Day for Safety and Health at Work
