A documentary about the challenges that migrant domestic workers face when bringing cases against their former employers in Hong Kong will be screened on Wednesday at the University of Hong Kong. The film follows the plight of four Filipino women and their families, as they seek justice for wrongful termination and breaches of their contracts. The 55-minute film, titled The Price Of Justice , highlights “the difference between being a local and being a migrant who becomes unemployed, and how difficult it is to access justice,” said Robert Godden, the documentary’s producer and co-founder of Rights Exposure, a communications consultancy that works with non-profit organisations. “The government always held up that even though there were some problems with the system, they would see them as anomalies rather than systemic, which is not correct,” he said. “[Officials claim] if something goes wrong you can go to the labour tribunal or the courts and they will sort it out. What we want to show is that on paper that looks true but in practice that is not the case.” The documentary, Godden said, not only shines a light on the problems, “it also shows what it means to personally have to go through this and what it takes”. Ivan Abreu, the director, said the film focuses on the stories of four domestic workers, including Baby Jane Allas , who lost her job after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Her case, first revealed by the Post on March 3, 2019 , drew increased attention to foreign domestic workers who are fired after being diagnosed with serious illnesses and often left with no access to public medical care in the city. Sacked Filipino domestic worker Baby Jane dies despite beating cancer Allas, who unexpectedly died from complications related to a kidney infection at the end of last month in the Philippines , won HK$30,000 (US$3,850) in compensation from her employer at the Labour Tribunal in 2019. At the end of last year, the city’s equality watchdog issued legal proceedings in Hong Kong’s District Court on behalf of Allas, who said that her employer had discriminated against her by sacking her because of her illness. Jessica Cutrera, a Hong Kong permanent resident who has helped Allas’ family, said that she would try to pursue the case, which is still ongoing, on their behalf. Joan Guting, who was forced on to the streets in May 2017 after her employers dismissed her while she was severely ill with cervical cancer and acute renal failure, is another domestic worker featured in the film. She eventually returned to the Philippines, where she died. But four years on, her friend Carla Temporosa is still trying to seek damages for discrimination in Hong Kong on behalf of Guting’s family. The documentary also tells the stories of a domestic worker who saw her salary dramatically reduced and was forced to work part-time in violation of her contract, and of a migrant who was physically assaulted while caring for someone with special needs, according to Abreu, the director. Tickets to watch the documentary screening are available for free, but attendees will be able to make donations to Allas’ family during the event. ‘Justice for Joan’: supporters of Filipino domestic helper fight to ‘restore her dignity’ Abreu said the film, which was commissioned by the Hong Kong Federation of Asian Domestic Workers Unions, shows the “Kafkaesque circumstances” in which many of the city’s domestic workers find themselves as they try to access justice. “They are the weaker link in the economic chain,” the director said. “The Hong Kong government should look at them as domestic workers in the same way as they look at other professionals.” Abreu, who is based in the city, noted the unbalanced relationship between the workers and their employers, who seldom face consequences even when they do not respect basic contractual terms. The documentary, which was shot in 2019 both in Hong Kong and the Philippines, touches on issues that became even more relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic , Godden said. “The discrimination that domestic workers face in regards to health, which the film focuses on to a certain degree, actually got worse during the pandemic,” he said. According to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Federation of Asian Domestic Workers Unions last year, more than 80 per cent of the city’s migrant domestic workers felt increased discrimination in the wake of the public health crisis. Quoting an advocate who was interviewed for a previous documentary, Godden noted that the discrimination faced by domestic workers in the city runs deep, and is linked to “sexism, racism, and classism”. “The elephant in the room is racism. And there’s economics in there as well. It’s this toxic mix,” he said. The documentary’s makers not only wanted to show the hurdles that domestic workers faced, “but also to say that this needs to change”, Godden said, pointing to the need for workers to be able to request extended health insurance after their contracts are terminated. He said there should also be a mechanism in place that addresses the challenges faced by employers when a domestic worker goes on maternity or sick leave, allowing others who are between contracts to fill in those gaps. “What sort of society allows someone to be wrongly terminated when they have cancer and thrown out in the street? Is that who we are? And if we don’t want to be that, there are actually some simple solutions in this regard,” Godden said.