Sacrifice of leaving child behind laid bare in British filmmaker’s The Helper documentary about Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers
Seeing hundreds of thousands of helpers on the streets of Hong Kong inspired Joanna Bowers to make a film about the maternal sacrifice many make to work overseas
More than 300,000 domestic workers, predominantly from the Philippines and Indonesia, live in their employers’ homes in Hong Kong.
These helpers clean, cook and look after children for a minimum wage of HK$4,410 per month, most of which they send back home to support their families. The amount may seem meagre to many Hong Kong residents, but it is more than most of the helpers would earn in their home countries.
By employing a domestic worker, often both adults in the family can commit to full-time jobs, increasing their household income.
When British filmmaker Joanna Bowers moved to Hong Kong six years ago from Los Angeles, she saw the helpers on their Sunday day off for the first time and decided their stories needed to be told.
Bowers raised just under HK$700,000 in 30 days through an online donation campaign which helped fund The Helper documentary. It premiered in May and will be shown at AMC Pacific Place cinema from this week.
The film follows the daily lives of five foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong.