Observation #13: When you move to Hong Kong, you quickly learn that having a full-time, live-in maid, known locally as a "helper," is a way of life here and that trying to make it without one is very difficult or even impossible. There are about 300,000 foreign domestic helpers living and working in Hong Kong and the majority of them immigrated from the Philippines and Indonesia while a very small percentage immigrated from Thailand.
Women make up most of the population of helpers and even though they are meant to only help out with the chores and childcare, most people here expect the helper to take over almost all the housework and child care that a wife and mother would normally do herself in the United States. Helpers cook, clean, mend clothing, iron clothes, organize the closets, make the beds, vacuum, mop, wash clothes, wash the car, walk the dog, wash the dog, babysit the children, pick the children up from school, take the children to activities, bathe the children, read to the children, get breakfast ready, get the kids off to school in the morning, do the grocery shopping and other errands and I really could go on and on. They have to do all of this for a mere $500 USD per month.
Most helpers work from about 6 am to 8 pm but some rise as early as 5 am and don't get to go to bed until 1 or 2 am while only getting one day off per week (in Singapore they only get one day off per month!). Unlike other expats, helpers don't even earn the right to file for permanent residency in Hong Kong after living here for seven years. To be fair, helpers get a sweet deal. Their living quarters are provided for free (the law states that they must have their own private bed), they can either eat their employer's food or be given a food allowance and they get free medical care. Even when they get pregnant, they get 12 weeks maternity leave and the employer has to pay all the medical expenses for the baby to be born. Basically, they can save almost every penny they make and they are very adept at watching their pennies.
I have met helpers who save a lot more money than most Americans, probably because they work extremely hard for their money and they don't take a dime for granted. Some of them even own paid for homes in the Philippines. Those are the lucky ones. The Philippine culture requires that the oldest non-married sibling in a family be responsible for putting her other siblings through college and for taking care of the family. Those helpers come to Hong Kong because they can make a lot more money here than they can in the Philippines and are able to send a big chunk of much needed cash back home.
Although most of the helpers here are treated fairly and respectfully by both locals and expats, there's no doubt that some of them are physically, verbally and sexually abused, mostly by the locals who have been raised their whole lives to view helpers as third class non-citizens. Some of them are made to sleep under tables in the kitchen or, even worse, with the old grandfather or the young son who, as he gets older, becomes sexually interested in the girl sleeping next to him in his bed. A poor helper in this situation suffers quietly because if she files a complaint with the government, it could take up to 15 months for her case to be heard and she will not be allowed to work during that time. Since that would greatly let down her family back home, she works and she works, hoping that at the end of that two year contract, God will have mercy on her and give her a nice, respectful employer who will treat her like family.
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