Language and cultural barriers leave Hong Kong's Indonesian maids 'more vulnerable to abuse'
Language and cultural barriers and an undeveloped support network have allowed abuse by cruel employers to go unchecked
Language barriers and cultural differences may partly explain why Indonesian domestic helpers have been caught up in three of the city's most horrific abuse cases over the past 13 years, a leading human rights figure has said.
Director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, Mabel Au Mei-po, said because of language difficulties, Indonesian maids - most of whom cannot speak English before arriving in the city - had limited access to the information that could have saved them from abuse.
"Let's say they need to look for the police phone number online; they would have difficulties because all of it would be available only in Cantonese and English," she said.
Au spoke in the wake of Tuesday's verdict on Indonesian domestic helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih's former abusive employer. Law Wan-tung was convicted of assaulting her and another Indonesian maid, Tutik Lestari Ningsih.
But prior to Erwiana's ordeal, at least two harrowing cases of assault involving Indonesian domestic helpers shocked the city.
Employer Tai Chi-wai was jailed for three years and three months and his wife, Catherine Au Yuk-shan, for 5½ years, after the couple were found guilty in 2013 of torturing Indonesian maid Kartika Puspitasari in their Tai Po flat between 2010 and 2012.
The couple whipped Kartika with a bicycle chain and once attacked her with a paper cutter after she refused to have her hair cut. They even tied her to a chair when they were away and every night before going to bed.
Kartika told the District Court - the same court where Law was convicted - that she was forced to scavenge food scraps from rubbish bins to feed herself.
Sutinah Samian, another helper, was the victim of horrendous treatment in 2000, when her employer, Leung Wai-kuen, burned her neck with an iron. Leung was jailed for 22 months.
As of last month, 334,000 foreign domestic helpers were working in Hong Kong, of whom 52 per cent were Filipino and 45 per cent were Indonesian.
Police said domestic helpers reported 49 cases - including physical assaults, indecent assaults and rape - against their employers last year, down from 53 in 2013.
However, police did not provide a breakdown of the complainants' nationalities.
Au said: "From my experience, Indonesian workers are more vulnerable."
She added that Filipinos could speak English and had more in common culturally with Hongkongers. "[Filipinos] are rather Americanised, while Hong Kong was influenced by the British," she said.
The cultural divide between Hong Kong and Indonesia was greater, Au added.
She also said that because Indonesians had not been working in the city for as long as their Filipino counterparts, they had less-established networks that could offer help and advice.
The chairwoman of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union, Sringatin, said Indonesian maids were offered languages classes before they headed to the city.
But the quality was questionable as the classes, organised by agencies in Indonesia, were not strictly regulated, leaving the domestic workers more vulnerable.
Edwina Antonio, who runs Bethune House, a shelter for domestic workers, said Indonesian domestic workers were often less aware of their rights than their Filipino counterparts as they tended to be less well educated.
