US and Hong Kong in human-trafficking row after city is placed on watch list over alleged failure to make progress combating the crime

Name: Calls grow for higher wages and better treatment for Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers
Uploaded: 2020-06-26T07:04:18.000Z
Duration: 2 min 58 s
Description: Calls grow for higher wages and better treatment for Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers

State department downgrades Hong Kong and says it needs to pass legislation targeting the crime and step up investigative efforts

City’s government hits back, calling report ‘seriously biased’ and not ‘substantiated by facts’

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The report from the US state department was highly critical of Hong Kong’s approach to its foreign domestic helpers. Photo: Dickson Lee

Chris Lau

Published: 3:04pm, 26 Jun 2020Updated: 11:08pm, 26 Jun 2020

The United States has put Hong Kong on a human-trafficking watch list, saying the city had failed to pass laws targeting the crime and had become sluggish in its investigative efforts, despite spending tens of millions of dollars on new staff.

According to its annual report, the US state department said while the city continued to make significant headway in meeting the minimum standards it had previously failed to achieve, improvement in 2019 had slowed compared with the year before.

But hours after the report was released on Friday, the city’s government objected strongly to its contents, calling the findings “groundless”, “seriously biased” and “not substantiated by facts”.

“Hong Kong has all along been making proactive, all-out and multipronged efforts to combat trafficking in persons,” a government spokesman said.

Hong Kong had been elevated to a tier-2 grade, but has been downgraded to the tier-2-grade watch list, the second-lowest rank in the four-tier ranking system. The rankings are based on the extent of government efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking.

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Calls grow for higher wages and better treatment for Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers

South Korea and Taiwan are among the countries in tier 1 deemed to have fully met the minimum standards. Tier 2 nations have not met the requirements but are deemed to be making significant progress, while those on the watch list, such as Hong Kong, are said to be failing in a number of areas.