Hong Kong domestic helpers on maternity leave should be allowed to live apart from employers, lawyers argue in second legal bid
- A counsel representing a worker says the city’s 370,000 domestic helpers are entitled to the same labour protection as the local workforce
- But the government says the live-in requirement will apply throughout the duration of the employment relationship, including maternity leave
Domestic helpers on maternity leave should not be forced to stay with their employers, according to lawyers mounting a second judicial challenge against the Hong Kong government’s live-in policy for such workers.
Counsel Kay Chan on Thursday said his client Yvette Dingle Fernandez was put in “an impossible position” last year when officials refused to waive the requirement, as her employer insisted that she must live in her workplace, apart from her daughter, Eloisa Valerie Fernandez, who was born three weeks premature.
He argued that the government had misinterpreted his client’s standard employment contract, which required her to “work and live in the employer’s residence”, as he submitted that the city’s 370,000 domestic helpers were entitled to the same labour protection as the local workforce.
“The law protects leave days,” Chan told the High Court. “If a domestic helper is free to do what he or she desires on leave days, and this is protected by law, how does it follow that he or she can be required to return at certain hours?”
The counsel said helpers were entitled to live outside during maternity leave and the refusal to grant waivers had “huge ramifications” as staying out would mean breaching the contract, which would hamper their future applications for visas.