They appear in the news often in a bad situation: serving milk tainted with bleach or getting beaten for a minor offense. But even before they arrive in Hong Kong, Indonesian domestic helpers already endure prison-like environment back home while they they train for jobs awaiting them in Hong Kong.

Indonesian helpers are sometimes picked because they are less likely to complain for fewer days off, lower pay or extra burden at work. But one advantage Indonesian helpers enjoy against Filipinas is their ability to speak fluent Cantonese, a welcome news for locals who prefer to communicate in their own dialect. 

Yet before they become fluent speakers, these aspiring helpers undergo tough training experience. They are locked away from the outside world more comparable to convict doing time than that of a  contestant of reality-TV show “Big Brother”. Groups promoting the welfare of these women claim that many of the participants attempt to escape from these facilities around Jakarta amid unsanitary conditions and alleged physical and sexual abuse. If you take away the “learning Cantonese” in the equation, the picture doesn’t look too different from those practicing human trafficking.

On the other side of the story, Indonesian government officials and employment agencies are aware of the confinement but justified that such arrangement is in place for the sake of the women’s interests. Perhaps we can argue that to learn Cantonese or household chores, the disconnection with family and confinement with fellow learners is a necessity? Many of these women come from remote villages who seek better life in the city, and coupled with lack of education, are easily persuaded to undergo training under such harsh conditions. Surely, with no family support nearby, such detention is almost the only way to go.

However, the current practice of rewarding middlemen and “talent scouts” that bring domestic helper applicants may also have a hand on the current prison-like arrangements. A finder’s fee of HK$6,000 is paid to middlemen and a portion of that is paid to prospective helper. But when an applicant takes the money and escapes the training facility, the recruitment agency loses money. Therefore, locking the doors and keeping passports or phones are their adopted preventive measures. While this may provide justification, there is no way these helpers should be treated like slaves, underfed, and subjected to tasks despite poor health.

Otherwise, recruitment agencies violate the United Nations’ basic definition of human-trafficking: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Indonesian labor department has been shutting down employment agencies who violate the law. But the problem is that just a month after licenses are revoked, the same people behind the offending agency opens a new placement agency, and continue the nefarious activities.

Indonesian domestic helpers provide good service to Hong Kong employers, but are also subject to numerous cases of exploitation by irresponsible bosses. In the middle of last year, they started to outnumber Filipina domestic helpers. While this sounds good as more opportunities are available for them, one might as well imagine the increasing number of exploited women shipped to the city through inhumane conditions. The fact they their numbers soar, more labor disputes and complaints could pile up lacking attention from consulate and government agencies.

The vicious cycle continues even after domestic helpers leave “rigorous training” and fly to Hong Kong to start work. Some employers refuse to grant them days off, even if Hong Kong’s labor laws provide such right. Others are underpaid and underfed. And after their working contracts expire — or cut short by early termination by employers, they are obliged to return to their employment agencies in Indonesia, according to relevant Indonesian labor laws.

It’s a sad story from our Indonesian friends who leave families behind (pretty much the same as Filipinas) to attempt to secure better life, only to be abused and exploited by heartless individuals disguised as employment agencies, government officials and employers.