Fri, Feb 25, 2022 page5

• COVID-19: Infected domestic workers left homeless in Hong Kong

  • The Guardian
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  Live-in domestic workers in Hong Kong have been left homeless after they were diagnosed with COVID-19 and their employers fired them or refused their return to the residence, support groups have said.

  Many of the workers, who are mostly women from Indonesia and the Philippines, were also left without insurance to cover their medical bills.

  Hong Kong is in the midst of its worst-ever outbreak of COVID-19, with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 infecting thousands of people a day, overwhelming hospitals and government isolation facilities.

  

  People cross a street in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

  Photo: AP

  The problem is exacerbated by strict policies of mandatory isolation for patients and close contacts, with tens of thousands of people unable to find accommodation.

  They have instead been told to isolate at home, but in the cases of dozens of domestic workers, their employers have refused to let them.

  There are an estimated 390,000 domestic workers in Hong Kong, working six days a week for a minimum HK$4,630 (US$593) a month plus food and board. They are legally required to live with their employers, and isolating anywhere else, other than government facilities or hospitals, is illegal.

  Maria, a domestic worker from the Philippines, tested positive in a rapid COVID-19 antigen test.

  She said her employer gave her three options — pay for her own stay in a quarantine hotel for two weeks, go to hospital and “tell them I am very sick,” or have her contract terminated.

  “I went to hospital in the morning, but there were so many patients, I finished at 6 o’clock in the evening,” she said. “My employer told me I can’t come back to their house, because I was dangerous, and I was afraid that I would transfer the virus.”

  Stranded in the middle of the night, Maria’s friends reached out to non-governmental organization HELP For Domestic Workers, which found her a place in a shelter.

  Other workers have been forced to sleep in parks, at overpasses or outside hospitals.

  HELP said they were assisting more than 100 workers left homeless, including at least a dozen who were fired or ordered not to return home.

  The Philippine envoy to Hong Kong on Tuesday accused those residents who were firing and evicting their workers of illegal and immoral acts.

  “If it can be proven that they were asked to leave because of their sickness, this can be considered an illegal dismissal under the employment ordinance in Hong Kong,” Philippine Consul General in Hong Kong Raly Tejada said, adding that the mission was helping more than 60 people. “We are proactively engaging also the employers to explain to them that terminating their employees in these difficult times, especially when they are positive, is not only illegal, it is immoral.”

  HELP executive director Manisha Wijesinghe said many employers were scared that they and their families could get sick or be sent to quarantine facilities as close contacts of the ill worker.

  “I don’t think there is a malicious intent there. It’s really the fear that’s driving everybody at the moment,” she said.

  However, leaving the women homeless, some for up to three or four nights in winter, was “untenable,” she said.

  Wijesinghe called on Hong Kong residents to provide support for their domestic workers who fell ill.

  “We understand that it is a scary time and everyone is worried for their own safety, for their children and family’s safety, but the thing is the domestic worker is also part of the family. They are the ones that take care of you on a day-to-day basis,” she said.

  HELP and other groups said that most cases of stranded workers are people who tested positive before a flight home and were denied boarding.

  Mai said she slept in a tent after she tested positive before her flight to the Philippines, and was refused re-entry to the boarding house where she had been staying.

  “They gave me a tent and a thick blanket so I wouldn’t feel cold. I slept the whole night outside the boarding house,” she said.

  Mai has since moved to a shelter, but the groups said that the facilities, which usually house people in between jobs or waiting for flights home, are ill-equipped to also isolate COVID-19 cases.

  The Hong Kong government has said that it is coordinating with consulates to provide assistance to workers who lost jobs and are looking for alternative accommodation sites.

  Maria said she hopes to return to her job because she has three children to support, but would also look for new employers.

  “I don’t know if I get sick again if it will happen again. If they do this again to me, I think I shouldn’t go back to them,” she said.
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