A Facebook Live video of a Hong Kong woman slapping and threatening to kill her Indonesian domestic helper has gone viral.
In the video, posted to a page dubbed Time News International, the helper is heard repeatedly saying in Indonesian Bahasa: “Oh God, I’m being smacked. I don’t accept her speaking that way to me.” At one point, she quietly calls her assailant “dog” in her native tongue as she is being beaten.
Meanwhile, her employer can be heard saying: “Why don’t you speak Chinese? Why are you speaking this other language? I don’t understand.”
“You’re so evil, what are you saying about me? Speak! Speak my language. What are you saying? Use Chinese.
“I’ve never had anyone make me as angry as you do.”
Throughout the course of the tirade, she continues to smack the helper in the face and across the mouth, at one point jabbing her in the cheek with her finger.
At various points in the video, the employer attempts to physically drag the helper off the bed, tells her to leave, and even threatens to kill her.
Neither the helper nor her assailant have yet been identified, and it is unclear when precisely the incident took place.
It is also not clear what triggered the attack, but in a 10-minute version of the video, the employer and the helper can be heard having a conversation in Cantonese.
Early in the video, the helper can be heard saying: “For small things you always come in [my room] like this.”
The employer can then be heard calling the helper useless and blaming her for making her lose her temper.
The helper then tries to reason with the employer, insisting that she is a good employee and is unfairly blamed for various shortcomings on a routine basis.
When the employer eventually threatens to kill the helper, the helper replies in Cantonese: “kill me then.”
The video has received more than 400,000 views since first appearing online less than 24 hours ago. Numerous commenters, often replying in Indonesian Bahasa or Tagalog, expressed their outrage, with many saying the police should have been called.
Sadly, if predictably, some netizens seemed to suggest she had brought the attack on herself, insisting she should have simply remained quiet.
In February, Hong Kong’s High Court quashed a legal challenge against the mandatory requirement that maids live with their employers.
The court dismissed arguments from rights activists that the requirement leaves domestic helpers vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
However, Judge Anderson Chow rejected that argument, saying it did not violate fundamental rights, and that if maids didn’t like the live-in rule, they could quit or not come to Hong Kong in the first place.
Coconuts will update this story as more information becomes available.
iskandar says
Racism is here and there to stay. In this typical case, Indonesian and Philipinos are victimized but the latter are lucky the Philippine govt are more sensitive and proactive in following thru whenever their workers abroad get abused. Unlike Indonesian govt.