HK helpers’ group seeks scrapping of ‘live-in’ policy

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