Culture of Indifference : Dilemmas of the Filipina
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CULTURE OF INDIFFERENCE : DILEMMAS OF THE FILIPINA DOMESTIC HELPERS IN HONG KONG Estelle Maria Kennelly A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2008 Full metadata for this item is available in the St Andrews Digital Research Repository at: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/509 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Culture of Indifference: Dilemmas of the Filipina Domestic Helpers in Hong Kong Estelle Maria Kennelly July 27, 2007 A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews Dedication To my mother, Doris Kennelly, who passed away whilst I was finishing my fieldwork in Hong Kong. Widowed, with three young children to raise alone, she faced many of the problems experienced by the women in this study. She set a wonderful example of strength, courage and love in the face of adversity. Thank you Mum. Acknowledgments My grateful thanks must first go to the Filipino women working as domestic helpers in Hong Kong without whose generous participation this study would never have been completed. Without diminishing my gratitude to so many, I would like to thank in particular, several individual women Dale Ebora, Ellie Poros, Estrella Albasin, Janet Pancho, Malett Saludez Balaoro, who gave me their warm friendship and trust and for whom I have the utmost respect for their unfailing courage and humour in the face of daily adversity. My thanks are also extended to the professional staff of the Filipino organizations, dedicated to helping thousands of women to regain their self-respect and fight for their basic human rights: Cynthia Ca Abdon-Tellez, Director of the Mission for Filipino Migrant Workers, her staff and the volunteers; Connie Bragas-Regalado, Chair of the United Filipinos-HK; Edwina Antonio-Santoyo, Director of Bethune House, and the counselors and volunteers there; Fr. Dwight dela Torre, IFI, Chaplain; MFMW; Padre Tocaro, Director, Methodist Safe House and Mrs Tocaro; Sister Consuela of the Catholic Charities; the then incumbent Chairs of Local Associations, and to the volunteers, too many to name individually, who gave their precious, limited free time to talk with me in the midst of helping their fellow domestic helpers in times of crisis. Not forgetting, the many women who gave generously of their time to share their life experiences with me. Thank you. My very special and heartfelt thanks go to my Supervisor, Emeritus Professor Joanna Overing at the University of St. Andrews, without whose support, counsel and guidance I would never have been able to undertake nor complete this research. The delightful relaxed evenings around her bountiful table did much to restore my spirits and my belly. I owe her more than I can adequately express. Thanks are due, too, to my colleagues and friends Salma Siddique, and Paulina Rodes, who shared our ups and downs of the postgraduate process with humour and patience. My profound thanks to Charlie Kenevan whose chats and humour buoyed my spirits on many occasions, interspersed with insightful comments to my ramblings. An especial thanks to Anne Mill who opened her home and her heart to me on several “homeless” occasions in my wanderings across the Atlantic. Also, my thanks go to the staff and my fellow students in the Department of Social Anthropology at St. Andrews for their helpful comments and support in the early processes of this research study. Last, but not least, I offer my sincere thanks to my family who have supported me in a myriad of ways. To each and every one of those named, and the many unnamed, friends and family, who never wavered in their support and belief in me -- thank you! ABSTRACT In this study, an examination of the everyday experiences of the contract migrant Filipina domestic helpers exposes a culture of indifference which pervades the Hong Kong society on all the levels– individual, community, and judiciary. At the centre of the abuses inflicted upon the Helpers is the employment contract with extraordinary restrictive terms which promote abuse by many employers. This study also looks at the transnational informal social infrastructure which has been organized by the Filipino community to mediate the hostile working environment engendered by the indifference and the influences of the global economic and political climate upon their lives. Faced with the task of implementing new policies for controlling labour migration into Hong Kong, the legislators have focussed on the end result and finding the means with which to accomplish their goal. Embedded within this process are unexamined cultural mores and practices. Although the starting point is to benefit the community, by providing domestic helpers to serve the middle and upper class households, too often the abusive consequences to individual migrants are ignored as the women become the means to an end. Migration has often been viewed as an aberration to the notion of the sedentary community. Treated as an anomaly, it is the migrant who problematizes simple theoretical positions of social organization and structure. The migrant is always treated as the one who does not conform to the ideal community and is conveniently merged into existing social categories, such as the lower status of women in Hong Kong, and the lower status of domestic workers – relegated thereby to the periphery of the society’s consciousness. Table of Contents Page Chapter 1 Introduction......................................... 1 The Research Study............................................ 4 Review of Literature on Global Women. 5 The Settings................................................. 11 The Study Group............................................. 12 Local-Global Connections...................................... 13 Ambiguities and Complexities of Women’s Status in Two Cultures........................................ 20 Research Methods............................................ 28 Chapter II Living in the Shadows............................... 4 0 Kowloon.................................................... 41 The Guesthouse........................................ 42 The Guesthouse Owner-Employer.. 44 The Contract Filipina Helpers............................. 48 Off Contract Filipina Helpers. ............................ 58 Hong Kong Island. ........................................... 68 The Shopping Mall ..................................... 70 Negotiating the Hostile Environment. 81 Chapter III Experiential Realities of the Contract............... 84 The Employment Contract...................................... 89 The Contract’s Ambiguous Language. 90 The Employment Ordinance. .................................. 107 Indentured Servitude in the Global Age.. 115 Chapter IV Emerging From the Shadows...................... 119 Creating the Local in the Global Migrant Labour Flow.. 120 Habitats of Meaning.......................................... 122 Local Associations and Networks............................... 131 Fund Raising and Entertainment................................ 143 Building a Grassroots Constituency.. 153 Mitigating Barriers........................................... 167 Chapter V In the Company of Strangers. 170 Safe Houses................................................ 171 The Refuge................................................. 173 Hostile Working Environments................................. 183 Dignity Reclaimed........................................... 192 Collusion Between Agencies and Employers. 198 Alleviating the Tedium of Waiting. 202 Testimonials and Witnessing................................... 214 Waiting for Justice........................................... 216 Chapter VI Searching for Justice.............................. 217 The Labour Department....................................... 220 Small Claims Court.......................................... 241 The Courts of Justice......................................... 244 Hong Kong Government Agencies. ............................. 249 Bureaucratic Indifference...................................... 260 Chapter VII Conclusion....................................... 262 Appendix A The Employment Contract........................ 268 References..................................................... 273 C H A P T E R I Introduction Working as a contract migrant domestic worker at a guesthouse in Hong Kong, Marissa1 seemed to be happy--greeting guests with a broad smile, and giggling easily and quickly as she talked to them. As I came to know her, however, I learned that behind the smiles was a lonely woman who missed her children and her home life in the Philippines. Marissa was 40, married, with three children who were living with her mother on a small island in the middle of the Philippine archipelago, in the Visayas region. Her husband was living with some cousins in Manila. He was looking for a job as “there is no work for him on our island,” she explained. Her brothers and sister had jobs with the local and provincial governments and her mother had retired from a government job with a small pension. Marissa sent as much money home as she could for her girls’ schooling, food and clothing. She had finished paying off her loans for the fees she had paid to the employment agency in the Philippines for her job, but had taken out an additional loan to help one of her brothers study for his law degree and Bar exam. When I asked