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| A Filipina sends money home wearing a raincoat on orders of her employer |
Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong have been sharing
stories online about how they have been treated with scorn by their employers,
as if they were the ones who caused the spread of the novel coronavirus or
Covid-19 in the city, or the ones most likely to spread it around.
The discriminatory treatment appears to have intensified
after a Filipina domestic worker was reported as having tested positive for the
virus on Feb. 18. Lost in the blame game was the fact that the helper was
infected by her 67-year-old employer, and not by fellow Filipinos.
The worst case so far appears to be that of J.A., who sought
help online after running a fever on Feb. 10, a day after she insisted on taking short day off to her employer’s displeasure.
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J.A. told townmates that she had been locked in a room and
was fed only rice for two days, the reason why she felt weak and her fever had
not subsided. Her employer had apparently suspected that she somehow got the
virus from her fellow migrant workers although she was gone for only a few
hours.
Her case was relayed to Philippine Overseas Labour Office
head Antonio Villafuerte, who immediately asked J.A.’s agency to check on her.
The next day her employer was told to give her adequate food, and J.A. said she
felt much better. However, she said her employer told her to start doing light
work even if she still had slight fever.
Many of the helpers are kept mostly at home, so they could
only share their stories on social media, the only easily accessible platform
for them to air the unjust stereotyping and discrimination they suffer in their
workplaces.
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| Migrant support groups decry the discrimination that arose from the Covid-19 spread |
Migrant workers groups have been up in arms over the
situation, and have repeatedly pointed out that the illness was brought to Hong
Kong by infected travelers from the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
Based on statistics, they say the chances of Filipino
helpers passing on the virus to each other is insignificant compared to them
getting it from their employers’ home.
Of the 68 patients who tested positive for Covid-19 in Hong Kong , only one was Filipino, a maid with no travel
history during the 14-day incubation period who takes care of her elderly
female employer who caught the virus during a dinner with relatives.
Despite this, many helpers say they have been treated by
their employers with disdain, especially after spending their rest day meeting
with relatives and friends, attend to personal business, or even just to have a
whiff of fresh air.
The hysteria was compounded by an appeal by the Labour
Department to foreign helpers to stay at home on their rest day as a precaution
to the spread of Covid-19 in the community.
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| Filipinos cram the Philippine Consulate on a Sunday for official transactions |
On Feb 2, a Filipina helper in Yuen Long who took her day
off to send money to her family was met outside the door by her irate employer
who ordered her to wash her entire body with a disinfectant solution and dump
her clothes.
She was then told to take a shower and, again, to disinfect
herself before going to her room. As a result, the traumatized maid said in a
post on the Facebook group DWC Help Group that she wanted to break her
contract.
Another maid, Thess Mari, said in a post to DWC on Feb 20 that
since the Covid-19 outbreak in Hong Kong, her employers had barred her from
touching their food, to the extent that she had to use chopsticks to wash rice
for cooking and wear a mask while eating.
She said they treated her as if she had the dreaded
infection. Worse, the employers cooked food for themselves and left her with just
a little to eat. When she complained, the female employer allegedly scolded
her, telling her she was being paid to work.
What upset her more was how family members would tell her to
step aside when they passed by, so she had to sit in a corner for most of the
day. Unable to bear the maltreatment, she prepared a resignation letter.
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| Many helpers say they're being treated as if they brought the virus into Hong Kong |
Another maid, J. M., said in a post that she had been
allowed to go home by her employers to attend to her child’s problem. But then
the employers changed their mind on Feb 20 out of fear that she might bring
back the virus from the Philippines
When they gave permission the first time, the employers also
told her that when she returns to Hong Kong, she would be quarantined,
supposedly to protect their family against infection. Many of the Filipina’s
friends egged her on to point out that all the three infected cases in the
Philippines, including one who died, were all Chinese tourists.
In a bizarre show of the locals’ misimpression that the
helpers are agents of the disease, a Filipina maid went to a remittance shop in
City Garden, North Point on Feb 20 wearing a raincoat apart from a mask, which
many locals see as necessary protection against the virus.
She said her employer was afraid that she would catch the
virus and bring it home.
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