Indonesian maids slam exploitation in Hong Kong

Indonesian maids slam exploitation in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (Agencies): Some 80 Indonesian migrant workers
staged a rally on Friday to protest against alleged exploitation
by employers, recruitment agencies and the Indonesian government.

The maids marched from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay to the
Indonesian consulate, chanting slogans and carrying banners
proclaiming, "We are not commodities, we are human beings".

The Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers (AIMW), one of
the joint organizers of the protest, said in a statement that the
Indonesian domestic helpers had decided to hold the rally to call
for an end to abuse and exploitation.

"The majority of the 59,000 Indonesian migrant workers in Hong
Kong face exploitation and abuse at the hands of their money-
grabbing employment agencies, fraudulent employers and corrupt
consulate," it said as reported by AFP.

Although remittances from maids make up a substantial
contribution to the Indonesian economy, they claim that the
consulate and the government had failed to adequately protect the
basic rights of their workers abroad, it added.

Many workers are bound by recruitment agents who arrange for
them to come to Hong Kong to work and then tie them to commission
fees, sometimes amounting to up to six months salary, it said.

Under Hong Kong's migrant worker regulations which stipulate
employers' contractual obligations, agents can only charge their
recruits HK$367 (US$46).

However in practice most agents charge considerably more. Many
of the Indonesian maids in Hong Kong are forced to pay between
HK$10,000 and HK$25,000, the Hong Kong-based Asian Migrant Center
(AMC) said.

Some 80 percent of Indonesian workers in Hong Kong are also
paid well below the HK$3,670 monthly minimum wage set by the
government for migrant workers, it added.

Hong Kong labor department handled 1,786 pay and contract
claims involving foreign domestic helpers between January and
October 2000 compared with 2,280 for the whole of 1999.

Trial

In a separate development an Indonesian maid has gone on trial
in Hong Kong accused of shaking to death a five-month-old baby
boy in her care.

DPA reported on Thursday that 29-year-old Sumiyati denied in
court the manslaughter of Yip Ho-yin who was rushed to hospital
and died of massive head injuries in October last year.

Sumiyati was caring for the boy, the son of a university
assistant professor and a nurse, when he fell ill in October last
year, a court hearing was told on Wednesday.

The infant underwent emergency surgery after a brain scan
showed bleeding in the skull but he died soon afterwards. An
expert witness testified that Ho-yin had been shaken between five
and 24 hours before his death.

According to the Hong Kong Mail the case comes two months
after another Indonesian maid was cleared of shaking a baby to
death in her care in Hong Kong after the judge ruled that medical
evidence was contradictory.