Leading Ladies: Mabel Au, Amnesty International Hong Kong

The director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, Mabel Au is an advocate for feminism and human rights. She talks about her early days as a documentarian and her experiences fighting for migrant workers’ rights.

When I was a secondary school student, my friend asked me if I had any free time to volunteer for migrant workers—to talk to them in Cantonese and English, so they could learn from our conversation.

A lot of foreign domestic workers come here but don’t really know the language. Learning Cantonese and English helps with their work, especially when they go to markets to shop for food and ask about prices.

Some migrant workers who come from Indonesia don’t speak English at all and can’t navigate their contracts.

The more I got involved as a volunteer, the more I knew about the world, but the more I didn’t understand.

I didn’t understand why migrant workers had to work such long hours without any rest, or why workers who had accidents at work couldn’t get compensation.

In university, I studied film production. I made some documentaries involving labor disputes.