Abstract
This chapter offers a multi-scalar comparison of governments’ and private sectors’ responses to abuse against domestic migrant workers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The comparison aims to identify the optimum level of government intervention to efficiently prevent abuse against domestic migrant workers. Although the three locations have similar demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the authorities examined here represent three different levels of government: national, semi-autonomous, and municipal. Based on fieldwork in these three locations, Laliberté presents the actors in government, domestic worker recruitment/placement agencies, and domestic workers’ rights advocacy organizations, and assesses their relative influence and resources and their ability and interest in promoting/guaranteeing and/or respecting the rights of domestic workers.
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the ILO-sponsored 4th Conference on the Rights of Domestic Workers, “Developing and implementing policies for a better future at work,” July 8–10, 2015, Geneva, Switzerland
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Notes
- 1.
For the sake of simplicity I will refer throughout to Taiwan.
- 2.
This designation of “Special Municipality” means that Shanghai has powers equivalent to that of a province in China.
- 3.
The majority in each of the three locations speak a native tongue that is unintelligible to each other: Cantonese in Hong Kong, Hokkien in Taiwan, and Wu in Shanghai. However, in the latter two, the language of instruction at school is Mandarin, which is taught in Hong Kong alongside English and Cantonese.
- 4.
Albeit the PRC has successfully managed to convince most UN member states to deny it this recognition.
- 5.
This autonomy is nominal for the election of the chief executive and the members of the legislative council, but the media and civil society enjoy more liberties than in the rest of China.
- 6.
Although my informant mentions that this requirement is very often breached.
- 7.
An additional difficulty in Shanghai is the inability of workers to protest.
- 8.
外籍家庭看護工 (Waiji jiating kanhugong)
- 9.
外籍家庭傭工 (Waiji jiating yonggong)
- 10.
As a member of the equality opportunity commission explained, this is more “friendly,” an approach which people I interviewed in an NGO and in a trade union rejected strongly.
- 11.
My informants in Taiwanese and Hong Kong’s trade unions both reported the presence of that bias.
- 12.
From interviews 7, 8, 29, and 33 in Hong Kong and Taipei.
- 13.
Hukou 户口.
- 14.
Foreign professionals in business, higher education, etc., are not included in these statistics and not subject to the same restrictions.
- 15.
- 16.
Most of them are employed in “3 D” industries, which are “dirty, dangerous, and demeaning.”
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
Interview 27.
- 21.
To put these numbers in perspective, as of 2016, Hong Kong has 7.5 million people, while Taiwan and Shanghai count 23 million each.
- 22.
This perception overlooks the fact that migrant workers anticipate that their stay in Taiwan and Hong Kong will represent a major improvement over their lives back home, and also a way to look after their extended families through remittances.
- 23.
For more recent data, see Peng (this volume).
- 24.
This reminds us that we need to take into account sending country regulations as well.
- 25.
MDWs are also moving to cities other than Shanghai, mostly wealthy cities in the East, where the middle class is large, such as Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou (ILO 2009, 2)
- 26.
This was mentioned to me time and again by my informants in NGOs, churches, and even in government, in both Taiwan and Hong Kong. Although a minority of employers engage in these behaviors, they do considerable damage to both locations’ reputations.
- 27.
- 28.
Employers deduct these fees from MDWs’ wages.
- 29.
Chinese colleagues at Fudan, Shanghai and East China Normal Universities confirmed to me that they did not know of such surveys at the time of my visit, in May 2015.
- 30.
The implication of this approach is that Taiwan’s labor code does not apply to MDW, who lack an instrument for redress in case of violation of their labor rights.
- 31.
Interview 29.
- 32.
Thereby losing the fees they have paid for travel, training, etc.
- 33.
The ROC constitution states that there is a provincial-level government, but the ROC being limited to the province of Taiwan and a small district of the province of Fujian, the provincial government has been streamlined to avoid redundant administration.
- 34.
- 35.
These rules were put in place because while there was a shortage of nurses who could look after the elderly, the Taiwanese government also wanted to address popular anxieties over immigration.
- 36.
Sunday Mass offers an important occasion to reach out to Filipina domestic workers and help them as well. Hence, as I have witnessed at masses attended by mostly Filipina worshippers, the ceremony often concludes with Church lay people providing all assembled worshippers a phone number to reach if they need help in case of abuse.
- 37.
Interview with a government official on June 10, 2015, Taipei.
- 38.
This was the view expressed by Taiwanese colleagues in legal and political studies, a few weeks after the passing of the law.
- 39.
The Long-Term Care Services Act, passed in May 2015, will take effect only in 2018, so at the time of writing it is too early to speculate on its consequences.
- 40.
- 41.
In Taiwan and Hong Kong, we have seen that migrant domestic workers live in the household of their employers, but that is not always the case in Shanghai.
- 42.
This is not unique to Chinese society: in Italy, for example, employers of domestic workers take pains to present them as “part of the family.” I am grateful to Sonya Michel for this insight.
- 43.
At the time of writing, the climate of fear instigated by the regime against foreign NGOs makes it extremely difficult to make international linkages. I have been unsuccessful in liaising with three of the four that the Canadian consulate knew of because of cooperation problems with Chinese authorities.
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Laliberté, A. (2017). Responses to Abuse Against Migrant Domestic Workers: A Multi-scalar Comparison of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. In: Michel, S., Peng, I. (eds) Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_6
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