Hong Kong is again looking to Myanmar as a source of domestic helpers, as 1,000 Cambodian maids scheduled to arrive this year are still awaiting visas, according to the country’s consulate.
In a blog post last weekend, Labor and Welfare Secretary Law Chi-kwong said the government was looking into the possibility of introducing Burmese foreign domestic workers into Hong Kong to meet rising demand.
The Special Administrative Region currently has 360,000 domestic helpers, with 189,000 from the Philippines and the rest predominately from Indonesia.
Law said that Hong Kong had to diversify its sources of domestic helpers as it strove to recruit some 600,000 to meet the needs of its rapidly aging population over the next 30 years.
Discussing its over-reliance on certain countries, the secretary pointed to the recent 15-day labor export suspension by the Philippines government, which froze the issuance of the permits its citizens need to work abroad as of Monday last week.
The freeze, say Philippine authorities, is in order to probe claims of illegal recruiting practices and corrupt officials.
It’s left about 1,000 Hong Kong families currently in the process of hiring a helper in the lurch, while also leaving thousands of Filipino workers jobless and in debt, according to Filipino worker representatives in the city, who have criticized the move.
Law said combatting exploitation and abuse and cracking down on exploitative recruitment agencies was necessary to attract new foreign workers.
The secretary’s suggestion of arranging for Burmese workers comes three years after domestic workers from Myanmar first began arriving in Hong Kong as part of a plan to bring in 2,000 in the first year.
But Myanmar temporarily halted sending its workers abroad that same year after a number of high-profile cases of abuse, though the ban served to push the practice underground, heightening fears of abuse, exploitation and slavery.
Six months after their arrival in Hong Kong, about one in five of the first 90 Burmese domestic helpers had returned home, unable to adapt to life in the city.
Similar concerns surround a plan to bring domestic helpers from Cambodia under a five-year scheme. The first batch of 1,000 Cambodian workers were due to arrive in Hong Kong late this year after receiving training in their native country.
Law said the group should arrive by the end of the year.
Reached yesterday, a representative of the Cambodian consulate in Hong Kong told Coconuts HK it was unclear when the workers would arrive, saying Hong Kong immigration authorities were still processing their visas.
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