By Vir B. Lumicao
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| Ho founded the Dignity Institute to ensure holistic help to abuse victims |
A Hong Kong human rights lawyer has founded her own
research, investigation and counseling unit to provide integrated legal and
psychosocial assistance to victims of exploitation and human trafficking, as
well as refugees in the city.
Patricia Ho, founder and managing partner of Patricia Ho
& Associates, said she set up Hong Kong Dignity Institute in July 2019
after she started the law firm, to close all the gaps in the system that have
hampered lawyers.
Since its founding, HKDI has helped 70 clients from 23
countries, provided 114 integrated legal and mental health consultations, and
trained 440 lawyers, NGO practitioners, policymakers, government actors and
foreign domestic workers.
“I supposed if we’re talking about all the domestic helper
cases that I have taken in the last few years, I thought that a lawyer’s job
was very hampered by the lack of understanding of their mental state and the
social aspects of the client,” the lawyer said.
She found many of her clients were very scared of talking to
lawyers and when they talked, they did not tell the whole story about what had
happened to them.
“My frustration was it’s very difficult to help them find
the most appropriate solution without knowing the whole of their problem,” Ho
said.
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| Many victims of human trafficking and abuse are hesitant to open up to lawyers, says Ho |
A harassment victim who approached Ho recently was referred to
HKDI for counseling by a volunteer psychologist to assess the woman’s mental
health.
Counseling is part of a holistic approach that the lawyer is
taking in regard to every case she handles to find out the impact of a client’s
ordeal on her mental state and how to help her emerge stronger and more focused
from her experience, Ho said.
“It occurred to me early on that I needed to work closely
with a psychiatrist or counselor social worker because I needed different
aspects and perspectives on a case. And I thought that if we were to help more
people properly, that was really needed,” Ho said.
“And as far as I am aware, there was really nothing like
that in Hong Kong where the different
professions worked jointly together,” she added. She said these professionals traditionally
would both work on a case separately, a relationship she finds unhelpful.
The drawback is that a lot of psychiatrists and social
workers give advice that is unrealistic or adverse to the legal cases of their
clients. For example, if a client goes home on the advice of a social worker,
it becomes hard to keep her case going even though it has a fighting chance.
Ho said all the different elements are needed to give a good
advice, and it made her very upset to see a client abandoning a good case.
She said there had been a few cases where she would get instructions
from clients who were not telling her
the whole story and were not comfortable with her. But after enlisting the help
of social workers and counselors at HKDI, the clients turned into very
different people giving her very good instructions.
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| Ho was named one of anti-trafficking heroes last year by the US State Dept |
Ho, who was named last year by the United States Department
of State as one of 10 global Trafficking in Person (TIP) Report Heroes, said her
law firm had helped about 30 Filipina, Sri Lankan, Indonesian and African
workers.
“It’s not a large number, in fact, the focus has been very
much on human trafficking and forced labor, and I don’t expect the number to be
very high because a lot of the victims usually are not in a position to come
forward for help,” Ho said.
She said these victims usually are with a group that was
recently connected with the outside world, alluding to people who practice
slavery.
Usually the victims’ phones or electronic items are taken
away from them and they have no rest days. She said others in that crowd don’t
get to seek help because of their situation or they have already been shipped
back to their home countries.
Ho said a client she advised recently to leave an employer
who was abusing her badly decided to disregard the advice due to pressure from
her own family to keep her job so that she could continue sending them money.
“What’s ironic is some of these advices have a tinge of
truth, but mostly it is misguiding as well and wrong. And the problem is when
you have a mixture of both, it’s so difficult for the person who is in a very
vulnerable situation to make an independent assessment and it’s really hard to
blame somebody for just listening to her family,” she said.
HKDI has a team of lawyers, private investigators and
researchers who do large-scale research to map the modus operandi of sex and
drug trafficking in Hong Kong. It also collects
intelligence and testimonies from drug mules and former drug lords to identify
trafficking patterns and the pandemic’s impact on Hong
Kong’s sex industry.
Other activities of HKDI involve training students of law, criminology,
psychology, social work, public administration and journalism students through
experiential learning activities.
HKDI says it has a mission of “restoring dignity to the most
vulnerable in Hong Kong and going deep to dismantle the systems of exploitation
that perpetuate these abuses.”
Ho said HKDI has its sights on modern slavery in Hong Kong,
where she said there are still 65,000 modern-day slaves despite slavery being
abolished officially in 1833.
Trafficking of young girls known as “mui tsai” to work in
local households is still happening today, so does trafficking for forced
labor, sexual exploitation, drugs and other reasons, Ho said.
For people trapped in slave-like conditions, the law firm
and HKDI provide integrated legal and psychosocial help as well as connect them
with shelters and friends for support and work with partners in their home
countries for recovery and repatriation assistance.
This is the kind of holistic approach to the assistance that
Patricia Ho and HKDI provide the vulnerable members of Kong society.
