Abuse and Violence Against Foreign Domestic Workers. A Case from Hong Kong

Abstract This paper explores various abuses Foreign Domestic Helpers (FDHs) or migrant domestic workers (MDW) in Hong Kong suffer and the strategies they take up to cope with this abuse. Data were collected from 215 domestic helpers (135 from the Philippines, 30 from Thailand, 41 from Indonesia, and 9 from Sri Lanka) all of whom had been in residence for at least six months. Selected by snow-balling technique, respondents were interviewed with structured and non-structured questionnaires. Research shows that sexual abuse is the most common form of abuse against MDWs followed by psychological and physical abuses. Female employers are the main perpetuators of psychological abuse while the male employers are culpable for sexual abuses. Coping strategies varied widely among the MDWs. Many of them endure the violence to keep the job; some quit the job and others struggle with the decision to stay or quit.

Download Full-text

State-Sanctioned Structural Violence: Women Migrant Domestic Workers in the Philippines and Sri Lanka

Violence Against Women ◽

10.1177/1077801219880969 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 26 (12-13) ◽

pp. 1598-1615

Author(s):

Sophie Henderson

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Sri Lanka ◽

International Law ◽

International Organizations ◽

Structural Violence ◽

Domestic Workers ◽

The Philippines ◽

Government Agencies ◽

Advocacy Groups ◽

Migrant Domestic Workers

Adopting a structural violence approach, this article examines how the failure to implement protective rights-based migration policies by the governments in the Philippines and Sri Lanka creates the conditions for the systematic exploitation of women migrant domestic workers by recruitment agencies and employers. Fieldwork conducted in 2018 with advocacy groups, government agencies, and international organizations in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong illustrates how both countries are prioritizing the promotion of overseas employment and commodification of labor above the protection of the rights of their women domestic workers under domestic and international law.

Download Full-text

Better a Friend Nearby Than a Brother Far Away? The Health Implications of Foreign Domestic Workers’ Family and Friendship Networks

American Behavioral Scientist ◽

10.1177/0002764220910220 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 64 (6) ◽

pp. 765-783

Author(s):

Jing Ye ◽

Feinian Chen

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Local Community ◽

Domestic Workers ◽

Protective Effects ◽

Personal Network ◽

Potential Health ◽

Daily Contact ◽

Foreign Domestic Workers ◽

Reported Health ◽

Migrant Domestic Workers

Migrant domestic workers provide essential services to the families they live with, but they are not considered a part of the family. As a group, they are not well-integrated into the society and often suffer from social isolation. In this article, we explore the potential health buffering effects of their personal network, in terms of family and friendship ties in both the local community and their home country. Existing literature provides inconsistent evidence on who and what matters more, with regard to the nature, strength, and geographic locations of individual personal networks. Using data from the Survey of Migrant domestic Workers in Hong Kong (2017), we find that family ties are extremely important. The presence of family members in Hong Kong as well as daily contact with family, regardless of location, are associated with better self-reported health. Only daily contact with friends in Hong Kong, not with friends in other countries, promotes better health. We also find evidence that the protective effects of family and friends networks depend on each other. Those foreign domestic workers with families in Hong Kong but also maintain daily contact with friends have the best self-reported health among all.

Download Full-text

The legal protection of women migrant domestic workers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka: an intersectional rights-based approach

International Journal of Care and Caring ◽

10.1332/239788220x15976836167721 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sophie Henderson

Keyword(s):

Sri Lanka ◽

Labour Market ◽

Domestic Work ◽

Legal Protection ◽

Domestic Workers ◽

The Philippines ◽

Women Migrants ◽

Economic Class ◽

Race Ethnicity ◽

Migrant Domestic Workers

Women migrants’ position in the global labour market is constrained by gender and racial divisions of labour, and the work they are offered is often insecure, low-paid and concentrated in feminised sectors of the economy, such as domestic work. It is not only women who predominantly perform domestic work, but also women of a certain race, ethnicity, socio-economic class and nationality. This article adopts an intersectional rights-based lens to examine how selected policies and regulations in the Philippines and Sri Lanka are discriminating against, and creating conditions for the systematic exploitation of, women migrant domestic workers positioned at the intersection of multiple converging identities.

Download Full-text

Bordering domesticity: Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong’s contemporary art

Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art ◽

10.1386/jcca_00036_1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 33-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Junting Huang

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Contemporary Art ◽

Cultural Landscape ◽

Domestic Workers ◽

The Philippines ◽

Care Work ◽

Art Practice ◽

Migratory Experience ◽

Migrant Domestic Workers

Since the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of migrant domestic workers from the Philippines have moved to Hong Kong. As they filled the city’s growing demand for care work, they also altered the city’s art practice and cultural landscape. In this article, I propose to consider a double meaning of ‘domesticity’ – in both the language of motherhood and motherland – as a productive framework to investigate the migratory experience of Filipina domestic workers. Focusing on Cedric Maridet’s Filipina Heterotopia and Xyza Cruz Bacani’s We Are Like Air, I examine how ‘domesticity’ has become particularly pertinent to understanding the ‘border’ through the movement of bodies and the global transferral of care labour.

Download Full-text