On the ground: Caritas Hong Kong and the fight against human trafficking
While the low number of trafficking cases identified each year suggests that the problem is not severe in Hong Kong, the stories social worker Phoebe Lam has heard say otherwise.
In the busy streets of Central, the doorway to hope and redemption hides inconspicuously among the noisy signs. Humble, low-key and reflective of its Catholic settings, a sense of peace is present within the Diocesan Pastoral Centre for Filipinos, the Caritas Hong Kong office that focuses on reaching out to domestic workers.
Caritas Hong Kong is a local, non-governmental organisation that works with the marginalised. This particular office supports two shelters for women, which sometimes takes in victims of human trafficking. Phoebe Lam Bik-che is the social worker and project officer of this particular division.
It’s obvious the passion and heart Lam has for the issue of human trafficking, as she fights on behalf of survivors of trafficking - giving them hope for justice.
Of the human-trafficking cases she’s seen brought to court- already a small amount - only two with traffickers as defendants have been successful. Hong Kong has had 14 official cases of human trafficking since 2008.
While the low number of trafficking cases identified each year suggests that the problem is not severe in Hong Kong, the stories Lam has heard say otherwise.
Some women are tricked: they are told they will be given waitressing jobs in Hong Kong, or are given a “free” tourism trip to Hong Kong by a friend but find themselves in the sex trade instead. Others are told they will work in the sex trade and earn several hundred thousand of dollars a night, but instead work for next to nothing. All of the women in sex trafficking cases enter under foreign domestic worker papers, tourist visas, or under illegal paperwork compiled by their traffickers.
