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Celine Sun

Anna Chiu knows she has to accept poor pay and humiliation at the restaurant where she works if she wants to keep her job.
Ms Chiu has worked in the restaurant in Sham Shui Po  for more than a year and is still paid just HK$22 an hour,  while other workers  get HK$30. 
The reason, she believes, is  that she is a recent arrival  from the mainland. 'My boss said: 'You are a newcomer to Hong Kong. You still have an accent and there are many things you have to learn. This is the pay you deserve,'' said  the mother of two, who moved  from Guangdong in 2004.
As well as long hours and poor pay, she  has to swallow the insults  from her boss, who calls her lazy and stupid. 'I can do nothing but cry in a corner. Some workers, when they see me, say: 'Why don't you just go back to the mainland?' It really hurts.'  
About 50,000 mainlanders move to Hong Kong every year, 95 per cent of them women and children. Many of them suffer discrimination when  job-hunting or even when just shopping. 
But they will find no relief from the Race Discrimination Ordinance, which came into force on July 10, because it does not cover claims from mainland immigrants. 
Findings of a Society for Community Organisation  (Soco) survey, released yesterday, showed that more than 80 per cent of mainland migrants polled  felt underpaid or overworked and almost half had had trouble finding a job.
The survey polled 153 women who moved to Hong Kong in the past seven years. About 80 per cent believed discrimination against mainlanders was severe and 85 per cent wanted to file a complaint.
Soco community organiser Sze Lai-shan  said the government does not provide enough help to mainland immigrants. 
'On the one hand, mainland immigrants are regarded the same as  Hongkongers, who do not need the protection of the Race Discrimination Ordinance,' she said. 'On the other hand, they are seen as second-class citizens and cannot have the welfare benefits enjoyed by other Hong Kong people during the first seven years they are in the city.'  
The group urged the government to include mainland immigrants under the law, set up  a body to deal with their complaints and shorten the waiting time for housing and welfare.



Race law won't wipe away tears and taunts for mainland arrivals