Seeking balance between safety, overreach

Substandard conditions

In a joint demarche personally submitted to the Officce of the Ombudsman on Feb 11, Tejada and Indonesian Consul General Ricky Suhendar pointed out the "substandard" condition of foreign domestic workers' boarding houses after a cluster was linked to a facility in Tai Po in December. "(Some facilities) are overcrowded, unsanitary, and thus posing a hazard to their health and safety," they said.

Ombudsman Winnie Chiu Wai-yin has launched an investigation into the HKSAR government's regulations on the boarding houses, and invited all stakeholders to share their views.

"We are deeply concerned that a vulnerable community, such as the FDHs (foreign domestic helpers), has to live under these difficult circumstances, particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," the Philippine and Indonesian consuls general said in the demarche.

"The issues of substandard boarding facilities have become a collective concern among stakeholders for decades. While we notice that progress has been made in recent years, more needs to be done to upgrade the well-being of FDHs in the territory," reads the demarche.

Tejada and Suhendar made eight "requests or recommendations" to better protect domestic workers from the pandemic and enhance their wellbeing.

"Since a proper boarding facility is one of the many issues affecting the health, safety and well-being of FDHs, we see that any effort to improve its condition must also take into account other related issues," reads the demarche.

They asked Hong Kong authorities to allow domestic workers to stay with their new employers while waiting for the Immigration Department's approval of their working visa "or, in the alternative, expediting the processing of via approval."

The consuls general also asked for the regular inspection of the boarding houses to ensure they are compliant with health and other safety regulations and for HKSAR authorities to consider subsidizing employment agencies to improve their boarding facilities for workers or "directly subsidizing FDHs to rent other facilities outside the EA's facilities".

They also appealed to employers for a "rotation of rest days", suggesting that EA should provide "a substitute worker" during the workers' day off.

Tejada said one of the top pressing concerns of Filipino workers was that some employers "were taking advantage of the pandemic as a reason" to prevent their workers from taking their day off.

"Through the efficient coordination mechanism between the consulate and the Hong Kong authorities, these employers had been strongly reminded by the Labour Department that they are still bound by the Hong Kong rules on the Standard Employment Contract and to abide by their duties and obligations, despite the pandemic," he said.