Carrie Lam urged to end ‘institutional slavery’ in Hong Kong by acting on promise of support for city’s foreign domestic workers

Asian Migrants Coordinating Body welcomes inclusion of subject in chief executive’s policy address, and urges immediate action on wages and living conditions

Reading Time:2 minutes

Domestic workers gather in Central on a public holiday. Photo: Edward Wong

Published: 8:00am, 12 Oct 2018Updated: 12:12pm, 12 Oct 2018

A rights activist has called on Hong Kong’s leader to free foreign domestic workers from “institutional slavery”, while bringing an end to “hypocritical pronouncements” of concern from the city’s politicians.

Eman Villanueva, a spokesman for the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body, made the comments on Thursday as he welcomed Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s rare inclusion of the subject in her second policy address the day before.

The Hong Kong families who pay their domestic helpers the most

In her speech, Lam vowed to enhance the government’s support for the 380,000 domestic workers in the city, including when it came to labour rights, and praised them for helping “unleash the potential of the local labour force”.

Rights activist Eman Villanueva (left), has urged Chief Executive Carrie Lam to act soon on her promise of support for the city’s domestic workers. Photo: Felix Wong

Villanueva urged Lam to act on her words sooner rather than later, and said he hoped the inclusion of domestic workers in the policy address would not “end up as one of the many empty motherhood statements made by Hong Kong officials in the past”.

He called on Lam to address workers’ immediate concerns, including raising their minimum wage to HK$5,500 a month. The level was raised to HK$4,520 (US$578) per month from September 29, which workers groups have labelled a “slave wage increase”.