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Dr. Amy Sim, a cultural anthropologist and professor at the University of Hong Kong picks me up outside of Central Station. It’s a gorgeous, sunny day and she asks me if I’d like to take the direct or scenic route. If there’s one thing I’ve learned on this Watson year it’s always choose the scenic route. As we walk Amy points out the opposing HSBC and Bank of China buildings. As a professional cultural anthropologist she is curious about everything. “Right after the change in governance in 1997 HSBC built this building, but they were very explicit about the design. They intended it to look like Lego pieces in order to say, ‘We don’t trust you. If you try to clamp down we’re ready to take this apart and leave.’ Then the Bank of China built this building in which every angle is a blade, as if to say, ‘We’ll cut you down to size.’” It’s difficult to think about corporate warfare, however, as we approach the sunny courtyard around St. John’s Church. Up the steps lies the Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW) and its Director, Cynthia Tellez. Megan, a full-time volunteer from Alabama ushers us into the warm, if cramped, office. Aaron Ceduroy of the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrant Workers (a collaborative offshoot of MFMW) is already there. Before we launch our discussion, I overhear Lan, an employee on the phone with The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong. It’s nice to be back in the familiar NGO environment, never a slow minute.

Amy, Cynthia, Aaron and I take advantage of the weather and sit outside on a bench to talk. They begin by describing what typical labor trafficking into Hong Kong consists of. Young women from the Philippines or Indonesia spend several weeks or even months in a training centre learning how to do the domestic tasks that will be required of them. During that time they are incommunicado with their families. Then once they graduate from the training centre a private recruitment agency will set them up with domestic work in Hong Kong for a hefty agency fee. Oftentimes the women must borrow money in order to pay the fee upfont, in addition to enduring the agency receiving a cut (or all) of their wages for the first seven months of employment. In a trafficking case oftentimes the women would not realize that the agency had set them up with false documents until it came time to fill out the Hong Kong arrival cards on the airplane. Only then would the agency representative hand out fake passports to the women with different photos and information that they must hurriedly memorize. Many women report that this is the first moment alarm bells go off. Aaron calls the confiscation of passports “one of the most prevailing practices, and one that hostages the workers immediately because then they are unable to file grievances,” let alone apply for government benefits, or even leave the country.

Once arriving in Hong Kong a victim of se trafficking’s typical first stop is my home, Chungking Mansions in Kowloon. The women are told to rest for the day because they will be working late that evening. At 5 o’clock they are picked up by a pair of men, given dinner, brought to their new “place of work” and raped. From then on they must service 20 to 30 clients a day in order to pay back any loans incurred, pimp or bar owner fees, and their per diem necessities like food.

For domestic workers who make up 99% of the people MGMW assists, the harsh realization of their own precariousness may take longer to sink in. Cynthia explains the bleak intersection of Hong Kong work permit regulations and private recruitment policies: “For the first two years a migrant worker is no allowed to swtch employers, and if their contract is terminated they only have two weeks to remain in Hong Kong. Before starting a new employment contract the worker must return to their home country.” For the first 7 months an employer pays a reduced wages to the employment agency directly, and it is rare that the women ever see even a portion of those earnings. “Because it helps their bottomline, agencies seek a high turnover rate. So, a couple weeks before the 7th month deadline they will begin calling the employer to see if they are ‘satisfied’ with the worker or if they have any ‘complaints.’”

 ”In 7 months you’re bound to have a complaint or two,” Amy chimes in. “So, if they do then the agency will say, ‘I can get you someone cheaper, why don’t you just try them out?’” Once the contract is terminated the worker either must leave Hong Kong or rely on the same agency to find her an illegal 2nd contract subject to the same 7 month condition. One Indonesian woman that eventually came to MFMW had been in Hong Kong for three years without ever receiving a single month’s wage. Every 7 months her contract would be terminated and she’d be forced to start from scratch. It is unclear whether employers themselves are aware of this procedure or not. “We meet some people who are very much concerned with the situation of domestic workers in Hong Kong, but these are typically foreign business people themselves. The main groups of potential employers, the Hong Kong locals, no one is reaching out to them. We have discussed it amongst ourselves but right now all we can do is focus our efforts on assisting victims, making them aware of their rights.”

Amy has a theory about the apathy of local Hong Kongers in regards to foreign domestic worker rights. “Slavery was not outlawed in Hong Kong until 1923 and the practice of selling young girls into domestic servitude continued long after that. The idea of the employer is that ‘You are poor, we are giving you food, a roof over your head, you should be grateful.’ The view that servants are slaves, beholden to their employers, remains.” Until recently days off for domestic workers were not mandatory, “which just increases their dependance because they cannot go out and meet other people, they cannot find other work,” Aaron interjects. The government’s efforts to ensure foreign workers do not integrate into the community seem to stem from fears of ‘moonlighting’, that is, foreign workers finding supplemental employment in their time off. In response to the most common fear amongst labor receiving countries and their politicians, that foreign workers would be competition for locals seeking domestic work jobs, the Hong Kong government established the Live In Rule. Migrant advocates maintain that the legislation reinforces foreign domestic workers’ dependence on their potentially exploitive employers, increasing their vulnerability through isolation. But then again, that may very well be the point. Since arriving in Hong Kong I’ve heard my interviewees stress one point over and over again, the view of the government is ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind.’