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Mary Ann Benitez

Hong Kong is being used by unscrupulous recruiters to lure women for almost non-existent jobs on the mainland, a congressional candidate in the Philippines said yesterday.

Flora Belinan, who worked as a maid in Hong Kong for 12 years before returning home in 2005, said agents were charging Filipinos at least 80,000 pesos (HK$12,900) to fly to Hong Kong, where they wait for mainland work visas.

When they reach Guangdong, the women find they have to compete with up to 30 other recruits from the Philippines for just two or three jobs. Those who fail interviews with mainland employers are forced to return to the Philippines.

'I have seen teachers who resigned their teaching jobs in my province, borrowed money for the recruitment fee for the China jobs, but came back with nothing,' Ms Belinan said.

She called on the Labour and Immigration departments to investigate.

Ms Belinan also said the early termination of foreign domestic helpers' two-year contracts was continuing in Hong Kong.

She said many helpers had become victims of so-called 'buy five for one' schemes by the city's recruitment agencies, whereby Hong Kong employers sign five contracts, paying the HK$400 monthly levy on each of them, and try the women out  until they are satisfied with one.

Helpers who fail to make the grade are fired within a few days or weeks.

She said employment agencies assured employers of instant replacements.

Ms Belinan is running for the Philippines Congress under the Gabriela Women's Party, for whom she is deputy secretary-general for external affairs.

Campaigning yesterday  in Central to launch the party's overseas campaign, she urged the 96,000 registered Filipino absentee voters to vote for her  party, which has a 'migrants' agenda'.

The mother of two told about 3,000 Filipinos at the forum that she understood their plight because of her experience in the city.

Before coming to work in Hong Kong in 1993, she was a community organiser for the poor for nine years.

Ms Belinan, the second former Hong Kong-based maid seeking a seat in Congress, believed she stood a good chance.

The Gabriela party  has been at the vanguard of women's rights and welfare in the Philippines.

Its congresswoman, Liza Maza, has gained a reputation of standing up for human rights and those of marginalised sectors of society.

Gabriela needs more than 1 million votes to put its top three candidates into the House of Representatives.

As well as Ms Belinan and Ms Maza, the other candidate is Luzviminda Ilagan,  the party's national chairwoman and a former Davao city councillor.

In the 2004 elections, former Hong Kong-based domestic helper Connie Bragas-Regalado, of the Migrante International party,  fell a few thousand votes short of being elected to Congress.



Filipinos lured to HK for mainland work left jobless