Realizza Otarra and her daughter Amerdale Rose. Photo: Handout
Source:
https://scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3009832/hong-kongs-foreign-domestic-helpers-living-far-their Society
For Hong Kong’s foreign domestic helpers, living far from their children, Mother’s Day can bring mixed emotions
- Many domestic helpers working in the city have had to leave their children in the care of relatives and see them only on annual visits home
- For many, most of their time is spent taking care of other people’s kids
Lalay Villanueva, pictured with her husband Eman Villanueva and their daughter Elca, counts herself as one of the lucky ones in Hong Kong. Photo: Edward Wong
Mother’s Day is when family members celebrate the women that brought them into the world and nurtured them, but for many of Hong Kong’s foreign domestic helpers it can be a bittersweet occasion.
Working in a city hundreds of miles from home, contact with their children is often limited to a quick phone call and a visit home once a year, while for many the rest of the time is spent taking care of other people’s kids.
But for Realizza Otarra, a Filipino single mother who works a world away from her five-year-old, Sunday will be just like any other, because she considers every day she can speak to her daughter Mother’s Day.
“I treasure every single moment I get to spend with my lovely baby,” she said, even though that is easier said than done.
Otarra usually has to wait until the evening to ring Amerdale Rose, and when that time finally comes, her daughter is normally already asleep.
She said she once hid in the toilet to secretly call her daughter, a conversation that nearly reduced her to tears.
The 32-year-old began working as a domestic helper in 2011; first in Singapore, and then in London, where she met the father of her child, a Nepali migrant worker.
She was forced to return to the Philippines to raise the child with her mother, after the father, whose family did not want the baby, withdrew financial support.
Hong Kong, among the highest-paid cities in Asia for foreign domestic helpers, soon beckoned.
“I came here in 2015. Am I a better mother if I had stayed in the Philippines to be with my baby, or am I doing a better job as a mother If I come to Hong Kong to earn more money and provide for my child?” she said tearfully.
“I want to be able to send my daughter to a good school, to give her the best education.”
The decision has not been an easy one, and has come with many sacrifices.
Having left Amerdale for Hong Kong when she was little more than a year old, Otarra said she was heartbroken to have missed her daughter’s formative years.
Josie Pingkihan, who has been living in Hong Kong since 1996. Photo: Winson Wong
“I’ve missed so many of her milestones,” Otarra said. “I’ve missed her first word, her first step. I actually just got off the phone with her, she said ‘mama can you please come home, why can’t you just be here with me?’”
While her parents have raised the young girl, Otarra said her daughter had begun to ask some uncomfortable questions.
“She’s a very smart girl, and she sees her classmates’ parents dropping them off at the kindergarten, and she would go ‘why can’t my mum send me to school?’” Otarra said.
Like many domestic helpers in Hong Kong, Otarra usually returns home and sees her daughter once a year. Since moving to the city she has had three different employers, and said she gives all her love to their children in her daughter’s absence.
There are many such stories among the city’s 380,000 foreign domestic helpers, who account for almost 10 per cent of Hong Kong’s working population.
For Josie Pingkihan, a Filipino helper whose work in Hong Kong has spanned more than two decades, juggling her responsibilities as the mother of two grown children, and her working life, were nothing new, until an accident befell her son, Ramon Josef, and turned her life upside down.
Lalay Villanueva and Eman Villanueva with their daughter Elca. Photo: Edward Wong
The 24-year-old learned he would need a major operation on his spine in February after he fell off a wall two years ago.
Now 56 years old, and pondering retirement in the Philippines, Pingkihan said the surgery would cost her a small fortune.
“I am fortunate to have a considerate employer who gave me 10 days off to fly back to the Philippines,” she said. “I had to be there for my son since he would need my blood for transfusion if the surgery goes wrong.”
After working for the same family since arriving in Hong Kong in 1996, Pingkihan has forged a close bond with the daughter of her employer.
“She shares more secrets with me than with her mother,” she said. “She had bought Japanese food and cosmetics to celebrate Mother’s Day with me, and even surprised me with a birthday cake before.”
Pingkihan expects to hear from her sons on Mother’s Day, and said social media had shortened the distance between them.
Lalay Villanueva counts herself as one of the lucky ones in Hong Kong. She found love, married another Filipino helper, gave birth, and is now raising the child in her employer’s home.
“I met my future husband at the Filipino Migrant Workers’ Union in 2006 almost as soon as I arrived in Hong Kong,” she said. “We started dating in 2010, got married in 2014 and in 2017 I gave birth to a girl called Elca.”
She takes turns with husband Eman to look after the 18-month-old, and the couple cover for each other at work. Both of their employers allow spouses to visit and stay at their flats to take care of the toddler.
Under Hong Kong law, Elca does not have the right of abode, but she can attend public schools in the city.
“I want to bring up my child here, and don’t want to be separated from her, and we will enjoy and celebrate Mother’s Day together as a family on Sunday,” Villanueva said.