Lawmaker: HK should establish centers for FDH needs

CHEUNG

WITH the number of foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong expected to double in the coming years, a lawmaker said all of the city’s 18 districts should have a center that could address their needs.

Legislative Council (LegCo) member Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung said the Hong Kong government should set up these centers that would provide emergency assistance, training, or shelter for distressed helpers.

“I think at the very least, Hong Kong SAR government has the responsibility to fund and establish centers that would be serving migrant domestic workers as their main purpose,” said Cheung, vice chairman of Hong Kong’s Labour Party.

“We have 380,000 of them here. It is mind-boggling that we don’t have one regular public program for this population. It is only after decades that we are beginning to provide very limited training, short-term training, for a small fraction. It is totally unacceptable,” he added.

Cheung said the centers could provide “training, conflict-resolution, urgent and crisis intervention, even shelter service.”

Labour and Welfare Secretary Dr. Law Chi-kwong had said in November last year that Hong Kong would need around 600,000 foreign domestic workers in 30 years due to the city’s ageing population.

A recently research study conducted by the Mission For Migrant Workers (MFMW) showed that the support for foreign domestic workers who are now caring for the elderly was “seriously inadequate, thus adversely affecting their well-being.”

The research study, titled “Migrants and Elderly Care: Investigating the conditions, concerns, and needs of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) who are involved in elderly care and assistance”, showed that an estimated 7,661 MDWs “at times do not sleep at all while they are taking care of the elderly.”

“At any given day, there are 20 MDWs who takes care of elderly continuously for 24 hours,” the study said.

The research found that as high as 40 percent of MDWs were engaged in elderly care work, with 74 percent of these MDWs taking care of a single elderly person.

“Two-thirds (61 percent) of 616 respondents in elderly care have wards who require additional assistance as they ‘walk with assistance/assistive device’ (31 percent), are ‘wheelchair bound’ (19 percent), or ‘bedridden’ (11 percent),” the study said.

These MDWs provide food and nutrition and various medical-related services to their elderly wards and accompany them in physical and social activities, it added.