Can Hong Kong please put a roof over our domestic helpers' heads on their days off?
Yonden Lhatoo says the migrant women who toil for our benefit deserve proper facilities in which to rest and recuperate on their days off
Some 20 women collapsed under the blazing sun, and ambulances had to be called in to take nine of them to hospital for heatstroke.
This was an outdoor event organised by the Indonesian consulate, but it got me thinking about an old problem that nobody in this town could be bothered to fix: the lack of a proper venue where foreign domestic helpers can relax on their days off.
They sweat it out in summer and huddle together in winter on footbridges and under flyovers in undignified conditions, relishing the precious hours they get to throw off the yoke of servitude and enjoy the company of friends. And yet, to many passers-by, they’re an eyesore or a nuisance.
But more than our tycoons, many of whom make substantial donations to charity, our super-rich government has a moral responsibility to help.
It could be done without much effort if the bureaucrats in charge had the conscience and political backing as well as public support, although there’s a severe scarcity of such commodities these days.
There’s plenty to spare for our domestic helpers. The government has wasted bigger bucks on white elephants in the past, and continues to pour cash into seemingly bottomless pits like the high-speed rail link to Guangzhou and the gigantic bridge linking Hong Kong to Macau and Zhuhai.
Just look at all the under-used clubs and sports facilities – catering to an exclusive, well-heeled minority – on prime public land that the government has been renting out to private organisations for peanuts under outdated agreements. Don’t tell me it can’t afford to do the same for a far worthier demographic who would benefit.
Like it or not, this city owes a huge debt of gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of women who leave their homes and loved ones to work as maids here. Yes, we offer them the opportunity to make more money doing menial labour here than they would get in more dignified professions such as teaching in their poverty-stricken home countries, but the benefits we reap make them indispensable. Without them, families’ incomes would be cut in half because both parents can’t go to work if there’s no one at home to look after the children or elderly grandparents.
No disrespect to sufferers of the disease and the philanthropists who chipped in, but charity begins at home, and here’s a more immediately worthwhile cause staring us in the face.