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.