Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong

Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港外籍家庭傭工) are domestic workers employed by Hongkongers, typically families. About three percent of Hong Kong's population, an overwhelming majority are women. In 2013, there were 320,000 foreign domestic helpers in the territory; of these, 48 percent were from the Philippines, 49.4 percent from Indonesia and 1.3 percent from Thailand. Required by law to live in their employer's residence, they perform household tasks such as cooking, serving, cleaning, dishwashing and child care.

Since October 2003 the employment of domestic workers has been subject to the unpopular Employees' Retraining Levy, totalling HK$9,600 for a two-year contract. It has not been applied since 16 July 2008, and has since been abolished. Whether foreign workers should be able to apply for Hong Kong residency is the subject of debate, and a high-profile court battle for residency by a foreign worker failed.

The condition of foreign domestic workers is being increasingly scrutinised by human-rights groups and criticised as tantamount to modern slavery. Documented cases of worker abuse, including the successful prosecution of an employer for subjecting Erwiana Sulistyaningsih to grievous bodily harm, assault, criminal intimidation and unpaid wages, are increasing in number. In March 2016, an NGO, Justice Centre, reported its findings that one domestic worker in six in Hong Kong were deemed to have been forced into labour.

In Hong Kong Cantonese, 女傭 (maid) and 外傭 (foreign servant) are neutral, socially-acceptable words for foreign domestic helpers. Fei yung (菲傭, Filipino servant) referred to foreign domestic helpers, regardless of origin, at a time when most were from the Philippines. The slang term bun mui (賓妹, Pinoy girl) is widely used by local residents.

In Chinese-language government documentation, foreign domestic helpers are referred to as 家庭傭工 (domestic workers) "of foreign nationality" (外籍家庭傭工) or "recruited from abroad" (外地區聘用家庭傭工). Although the government uses words with the same meanings in English-language documentation, it substitutes the term "domestic helper" for "domestic worker". Director of the Bethune House shelter for domestic workers Adwina Antonio has criticised the term "helper", saying that the migrants do dirty jobs; calling them "helpers" strips them of the dignity accorded workers and implies that they can be mistreated, like slaves.

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