Letters | Take time on Labour Day to show Hong Kong’s domestic workers you care
- Readers discuss domestic workers’ vital role in Hong Kong society, and how the city’s public officers have their heads in the clouds
The latest and most far-reaching wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit some of Hong Kong’s most vulnerable the hardest, including many of the city’s 340,000 foreign domestic workers. This has compounded numerous existing challenges of the past two pandemic years.
Domestic workers have long played a vital social and economic role in our society. Sometimes referred to as jeh jeh or “elder sister” in Cantonese, domestic workers don’t just “help” but work for and with an employer. They are not simply “helpers” but employees. Given the limited options for child and elder care, a domestic worker is often hired to make it possible for their employer to work themselves.
As our lives start to return to some sense of normal and we look to a brighter future for all who call Hong Kong home, what more can we do to better care for domestic workers who care for our families and children every day at the expense of time with their own?