Today, August 23, UNESCO observes the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. No country or its government acknowledges the menace of human trafficking in their territory. World leaders claim to have the best laws and the best law-enforcement agencies in the world to curb evils of slavery, forced labour and sex trafficking.
But the Trafficking in Persons Report 2020 by the State Department of the United States (US), released on June 25, reveals a different story. The report provides some disturbing data, underlining the thriving murky business of modern-day slavery happening all around us, threatening the lives of over 25 million adults and children who suffer from labour and sexual abuse worldwide. Each of us, black or white, man or woman, is created in the image and likeness of God, but human trade desecrates the inherent value and immeasurable worth of human beings.
Trafficking in persons is not an alien crime that exists only in some underdeveloped regions under dictators, rather it is at our own doorsteps. It was not many years ago that horrifying visuals of women and children in chains, displayed on the streets for sale shocked the world. The dominance and greed of the rich and the helplessness of the poor perpetuate the vicious cycle of human trade and there is no easy way out.
Hong Kong is home to over 350,000 migrant domestic workers and 95 per cent of them are women. Pastoral workers who work with them report numerous cases of domestic workers being ill-treated, abused and refused just wages. We cannot deny the truth of modern-day slavery being perpetuated in our neighbourhood.
An earlier study report by the Mission for Migrant Workers, a Hong Kong based non-government organisation, revealed that nine out of 10 domestic workers suffer from insufficient rest, two out of five do not have a private room, one in five have reported ill-treatment by their employers, and 25 per cent are given insufficient food. Excessive and illegal agency fees, underpayment, confiscation of passports, and physical as well as psychological and sexual abuse continue to haunt thousands who have left their family and friends behind in the hope of a better future.
In its Trafficking in Persons report, the US State Department downgraded Hong Kong to the Tier 2 Watch List, citing that the government had failed to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and had not demonstrated increased efforts over the past year to combat the problem.
It recommended that the Hong Kong government to enact a comprehensive anti-trafficking law to combat the crime, as well as put in place stronger protections across the board—from law enforcement to the judiciary—for the city’s vulnerable, including its foreign domestic workers.
However, the government brushed aside the report and its allegations, calling the report “most unreasonable and inconceivable” and not “substantiated by facts.”
An urgent need that requires attention is at the government-level, where there must be a mechanism that monitors, investigates and punishes agencies that charge migrant domestic workers illegal fees, confiscates their passports and encourages underpayment of wages.
Obtaining legal assistance against the aggressor is a major hurdle for migrant workers, especially in case of domestic helpers. Chaplaincies for migrants in the diocese provide great assistance on issues that concern them. But the primary responsibility lies with the people of Hong Kong to appreciate and treasure their domestic helpers. Jose cmf
