Marty

First coming to Hongkong at 2012, Marty had already worked as a migrant domestic worker for more than a decade.

As a major destination for oversea-workers in south-east Asia, Hongkong has an already-established community of migrant workers from various countries, including the Philippines. According to Marty, she chose to work in Hongkong for a higher wage, since her father was sick.

“I feel homesick at first. But later on, is just for them (the parents) does I can help them so need to fight the homesick.”, said Marty, who is still not very fluent in English, explaining the experiences of the early years of her employment.

In her decade-long working experience, she had worked for two employers, the first lasting 8 years, ending because the family no longer need a helper, and the second lasts until now.

Marty’s day began with waking up early in her windowless room inside the employer’s house. After waking up, she will then prepare a breakfast for the family and herself. At about 8’o clock, most of the family will start to depart, leaving Marty in the house to finish the domestic chores, ranging from cleaning a table to cooking a meal. The chores will last until afternoon, where the preparation of a dinner will begin. Like the breakfast, Marty will share the dinner with the family as well, and is responsible for cleaning up the dishes after finishing the meal. Marty’s day then comes to its end, where she will try to fall asleep on her bed in the windowless room. Despite being a bit too hot, Marty is rather content with her room: in the house of her former employer, she shared a room with the employer’s daughter, who often went to bed quite late, waking Marty up in the process.

If the day is a Sunday, then Marty will hang out with her friends, their usual stops are the catholic church and the beach, which is a common destination for tired helpers that wish to relax. According to Marty, her routine for Sundays has already lasted for two years, ever since her employment by the current employer.

Although Marty’s life may seem pretty decent, but she is the luckier few of the whole of MDW community. Marty is already quite lucky to get a private room, for many domestic workers can only sleep on sofas, or share a bed with someone else, like Marty’s experience under her first employer’s roof. Unlike many would have liked to believe, the law regulations regarding life of domestic workers are actually rather vague. For example, it is said that the employer must provide “a place to reside” somewhere within the employer’s house for the domestic worker, but no further detail is provided. Therefore this “place to reside” can be any place from a proper bedroom to a sofa or even to a mug on the lawn. The same vagueness can also be seen in regulations regarding other aspects of the helpers’ life: it is said that “it is the employer’s duty to provide food free of charge to the helper”, but nothing is mentioned about the punishments of employers that failed their duty. Yes, the articles that regulates living conditions of domestic workers did not mention anything about helper reporting the employer due to unfair treatment while it is listed with lots of detailed about how the helpers should be punished due to things like not living in the home of their employers and doing jobs other than being a helper.

Other than the vagueness and corresponding lack of protection in the law regulations of helpers, they also face the problem of contract-ending. The usual contracts between a helper and an employer lasts for two years, but can be terminated by either side early due to various reasons, usually one side finding the other unfitting to their expectations. This model of contract that can be terminated by either side seems to be fair, only when the two actors are equal in power. Yet unfortunately this is not the case with helpers and their employers. The helpers get employed by agencies that act as a bridge between the employers and employees, and like just about all businesses they want to earn money. What happens is that when an employer wish to get a helper, they will ask the agencies to find one for them, giving the agency some fees in the process. Their contrasts work like this: if the contract between the helper and the employer ends early, then the agency will need to pay back the fee to the employer in return of their inconvenience. Since the agencies don’t wish this to happen, they developed their own rules of when a contract ends early, then the helpers can not choose their next employer, but only to be paired to one that may well be someone the helper completely don’t know. Only when a contract ends normal, can helpers choose their next employer. This brings back to contract-breaking: it is extremely unbeneficial for a helper to break a contract, for they will not be able to choose who will they work for next, yet the employer will not suffer much inconvenience if they chose to break it.